Startling Stories v25n03 (1952 04) (Gorgon776)

SCIENTIFICTION

THE GLORY THAT WAS

A NOVEL Of OLYMPIAN LAUGHTER
By L. SPRAGUE de CAMP

THE LAST DAYS OF SHANDAKOII

A NOVELET Of ANCIENT MARS
By LEIGH BRACKETT

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NOW PUBLISHED EVERY MONTH

Vol. 25, No. 3

A THRILLING PUBLICATION April, 1952

Complete Noeel

THE CLOUT THAT WAS

Ey L. SEEAGCE deCANC

Bulnes, adventurer, and Flin, scholar . . . the
search for a beautiful woman took these men of
the 27th Century to Greece of the Golden Age! 12

A NoTelet

THE LAST DAYS OF SHANDAKOR Leigh BrockeM 104

An Earthman discovers that both love and tragedy live on in
a long-dead city of Ancient Mars which denies death’s reality

Short Stories

THE INTRUDER Oliver Soori 89

What’s it like to have an exact duplicate of yourself show up?

WELCOME TO LUNA Charles E. Fritch 100

He resolved that he would reach the Moon ... or die trying!

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? Frank Herbert 124

Hypnotist Paul Marcus searched for it in the blonde’s mind

Eeotures

THE ETHER VIBRATES -...The Editor 6

A science fiction department featuring letters from readers

HOW'S YOUR VOLTAGE? Science Facts 1 1

New findings which point to the electrical basis of all life

SAMUEL MINES, Editor

HTAKT1.ING STOill-US. Puhlished everj month by Better Publications, Inc.. L. Pines, Pre.sident. at 1125 E. Valle Ave..
Kokomo. Incl. EdUorial and executive ottices, 10 East 40th Sr., New York 16. N. Y. Entered as second-class matter at the
l»ost office at Kokomo. Ind.. under the act of March 3. 1879. Copyright. 1952. by I>ettei Publicatious. Inc. Subscription (12
issues). $3.09; single co.-ies, S.2.>; toteign and I'anadian postage extra. In coriesponding with this magazine please include
postal zone number, if any. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by self-addressed, stamped envelopes and
are .submitted at the author's risic. Names of all characters used in stories and semi-fiction articles are fictitious. If the
nuiuc oi anv living person or existing institution is used, it is a coincidence. April, 1952, issue. PitINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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A Science Fiction Department Featuring Letters from Readers

T he time seems to have come for us to make
our position clear on a controversial subject
— sex. Or, more specifically, are we or are we
not going’ to have (1) no (2) a little (3) a lot
of sex in the magazines? The argument has
been sputtering like a decrepit motorcycle in
TE’'/ for so long that it is time we dealt with
it fairly, as Jurgen used to say.

Let's look ■ at the opposition first. Not too
many voices are, raised in dissent, and even
these are divided into two camps. There are
those who are genuinely shocked by any men-
tion of sex and there are those who don’t care
too much, but would rather have rockets than
bosoms. Of those who are shocked, a fair
sample is a bit culled from a recent letter, which
accused thusly:

“You are using illustrations of the human
body to further the cause of getting more people
to read science fiction ! Your magazines are
being made a container for filth and dirt. Why
do such filthy, impure pictures have to be used?
No one could guess, from the filthy picture on
the cover, that such superb literature w'as be-
hind it."

We Fail io See It!

I wouldn’t call this typical. To that person,
the human body is indecent unless it is covered
from neck to ankles. Let’s not be superior, nor
sneer at anyone’s convictions, but we, personal-
ly and objectively, fail to see why the human
body is so filthy that it has to be wrapped up
like a Christmas package or be considered un-
fit for mention. People who feel that way about
their bodies must hate themselves.

Of course not all of us are attractive enough
to stand much exposure and for this purpose
clothes have a definite function which is decora-
tive as well as concealing. But there are plenty
of faces which are far from attractive and yet
custom permits them to be worn right out in
the open instead of prescribing masks. Attrac-

tiveness or the lack of it is not really the factor
here, since naturally only the most attractive
subjects are ever visualized by the artist.

But let’s be honest. What the objectors really
mean is that these pictures are intended to at-
tract attention by utilizing their sex interest.
Well, if we are going to use humans at all (and
our correspondent seems bitter about that, evi-
dently preferring pictures with no people in
them) why shouldn’t they be made as interest-
ing as possible? Every normal male is inter-
ested in an attractive woman; if he’s honest
he’ll admit it’s sex appeal, if he’s a hypocrite
he’ll call it something else. And somewhere in
this issue there’s a letter from a smart gal de-
manding that her sex be given a break by hav-
ing more and better looking men on the covers.

Playing the Ostrich

To deny the interest between the sexes, or to
close one’s eyes to the dominant role of our bi-
sexual make-up, is simply to play the ostrich.
Let’s not be childish about it. Whatever other
human activities there are — writing books,
painting pictures, making music, building
bridges, flying to the stars, are all sparked by
man’s endocrine response to the other sex. It’s
so fundamental that you cannot have human be-
ings without it — normal human beings at least.

So why do you need it in science fiction?
Why can’t you just have rockets? Well, occa-
sionally you can. There are good stories with-
out any female interest. But you can’t have a
steady diet of them without dehydrating the
entire field. That was frequently the trouble
with many of the early stf stories and is one
reason why the material being written today is
warmer and fuller and so much closer to real
literature. It is better to write about human
beings in a science-fiction situation than to
write about lifeless gadgets in a void.

But let’s look at the other side. A type of
(Continued on page 8)

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(Continued from page 6)

story is beginning to creep into science fiction
which was common some years ago in the now
defunct horror magazines. These stories at-
tempt to stun the reader with sex and sadism —
torture, perversion, abnormalities and masoch-
ism. They’ve revived the old devil cults, the
blend of sex and witchcraft, vampirism, necro-
philia, sodomy and all the others. This is some-
thing science fiction could do without. It is
such a far cry from the normal interest between
boy and girl that it hardly seems to be the same
subject. And since relatively few people are
attracted to such violent abnormalities I doubt
that many readers will be found to support the
trend.

While, it persists, however, it may give
science fiction a black eye by associating it with
degeneracy.

Honesty in Literature

That is exploitation of sex to an unwholesome
degree. Our purpose doesn’t even come close
to exploitation. No writer has ever received
instructions to “put some sex” into a story. If
his story doesn’t call for it, that’s fine. If his
story deals with people of different sexes, how-
ever, and they get themselves into a spot where
a certain amount of sex interest is likely to
spark between them, we see no reason why that
fact should not be admitted. It is recognized in
most of the world’s greatest literature and its
honesty is exactly what has made that litera-
ture great. Hypocrisy, shaiUj concealment, eva-
sion — the quality of greatness is in none of
them.

There’s the beginning of a policy for our
science fiction. Let’s print stories about people
as real as our authors can make them. Let’s
deal honestly with their problems, their charac-
ters and motives — and be limited only by good
taste.

Each age sets a line beyond which decency
calls a halt. That line is in a different place
today from its location ten years ago and ten
years from now it will be in still a different
place. But in a rough way your own good taste
tells you what is acceptable. Let’s see how it
works out.

That slight gap in letters we mentioned in
the last issue has now been closed — and how !

8

I’d like to get them all in — they’re a riot — ^but
if we run out of space, bear with us, won’t you ?

MEMORIES

by Sgt. Edwin R. Corley

Dear Mr. Mines : While idly leafing through back
issues of magazines I haven’t had time to read yet,
memories of the good old days came floating back.
Remember the screwy letters that came rolling in?
There was always one that began :

Dere Sam : I am only 163 years old and this is
the first time I ever wrote to a mag. Send me
all the original drawings for the past fifty years,
as I am starting an opium den and the walls are
awful bare. Enclosed is 3c stamp.

Nostalgic, hey? And remember the one that
went :

Good eating, Snark: Rocketing from the far-
ther reaches of Pluto, I went into free fall, dis-
connected the Geiger counter and broke out the
latest ish of SS. Three BEMs peered anxiously
over my shoulder as I lit my calugite pipe and
turned frantically to Snavely’s opus. . . .

But no issue would have been complete without
the little gem that started ;

Dear Sam : Regarding Murgatroyd’s stinking
letter, I want to say that I have it on good
authority that the Boojum was a Grulzak, so
any references to Hubbard’s story (SS, Aug.,
Page 31 — S3, 3 pr sox 1 shrt) have to be based
on this assumption, . . .

This one’s a little dated, but I’m sure you’ll re-
member it :

Dear Editor : I remember Shimbashi! Last
summer, while mowing the lawn, I fell through
an old un-used sewer. Stunned, I awoke in the
arms of a 16-foot blonde. “I am Tia,” she said,
“of the race Giantus. Secretly, we rule your
world, using your shaving mirrors as hypnotic
projectors.”

Still with me, Sam? Getting away from the
wacky ones, there are always the earnest young
idealists who begin :

Dear Mr. Mines : Why can’t we have less tripe
like “Planet Ship X-1414” and more serious,
mature stf like Heinlen, Bradbury, van
Vogt. . . .

But the one that puts my heart up in my. throat
is the plain little one of about three paragraphs that
just goes :

Dear Sir : I’ve never read any science fiction,
because I’ve always thought it was just “blood
and thunder” pulp stories with a new twist. But
after reading my first stf magazine. I’m happy
to find I was wrong. You’ve got the tools of
literiture in your hands. Keep up the good
werk.

Maybe they can’t spell, but those are the readers
that keep the quarters rolling in to pay for the
paper and stories, and we “fen” know it. More
power to you, little man. Just keep reading and one
of these days you’ll be bitten by the letter-writing
bug too.

Hope I haven’t stepped on any corns with my
(Continued on page 131)

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How’s Your Voltage?

NEW FINDINQS POINT TO THE
ELECTRICAL BASIS OF LIFE

R obots come and go in science fiction,
but we have yet to see a story in which a
human being drove into a service station and
had himself recharged electrically. Yet that day
may not be as far off as you think. Every
restaurant may have a recharger to give its
patrons an ampere lift as well as a meal.

The theory that all life has an electrical basis
has been with us for awhile. But it has been
somewhat vaguely expressed and limited to cer-
tain demonstrable forms, such as measuring
brain waves.

New experiments indicate, however, that it
goes much further than that, and evidence is
being piled up in laboratories all over the
country. At Yale, Dr. Harold S. Burr has
measured the electrical potential of a kernel of
corn, the resulting reading on a . galvanometer
giving a rough prediction of the seed’s sprouting
ability and its full size at maturity.

At Penn,sylvania State College, a group of
researchers, working with the Army Signal
Corps, demonstrated that magnets foul up a
pigeon’s “homing instinct” completely.

Similar magnetic fields set up in the rivers of
British Columbia by the Canadian government
were found to affect sharply the homing “in-
stinct” of salmon. And electrical devices are
known to attract fish and eels of many kinds.

Back at Yale, Dr. Miles and Dr. Beck of the
Psychology Department have been trying to
track down the mechanism of man’s sense of
smell aad again have come up indications of
electricity.

Man’s (and pre.sumably animals’) ability to
detect odors, they believe, is actually a “broad-
cast’’ by the nose of infra-red rays, with wave
lengths running from 7.5 to 14 microns. Once
the correct wave length for each odor is es-
tablished, it will be the easiest thing in the world
to broadcast any scent desired and the perfume
industry will move into new fields.

Moving pictures and television broadcasts
which will combine three-dimensional images
with color and controlled scents will achieve an
illusion of reality little short of life itself. Nor
is olfactory stimulation the least important of
these. The peculiar attribute of scent is that it
brings back memories more effectively than
almost any other type of stimulus. Thus cinema
or television plays spiked wdtli correct odors
will make a sharper effect initially, remain in
the memory longer and be more easily recalled
than ever before.

Charles Kettering, General Motors’ inventive
genius, has been after the secret of photosyn-
thesis for years, and many of his research teams
have discovered some of the sun’s secrets. They
have made pure butter in the test tube, without
the help of milk or cow in any way, utilizing sun
power. And they believe that another ten years
may see the whole fabulous secret revealed, of
how chlorophyll turns the electrical energy of
the sun into food. With that, man’s fear that he
will outgrow the food supplies of the planet are
ended.

Even the search for a cancer cure has brushed
against the electrical theory of life. Measure-
ment of nerve fields has demonstrated that there
is a considerable rise in voltage weeks before
any other symptom of cancer appears. This has
produced not only a cancer test, but a new and
profitable area of research towards a cure.

These are tangible, material results. There
are other lines of research, such as Dr. Rhine’s
experiments in ESP at Duke, which add to the
general picture. Out of all these individual bits
of research, going on independently in colleges,
laboratories, even in basements and attics all
over the country, will some day emerge the
answer to the last and most baffling question of
all — what is life?

— The Editor

11

The «iLORY

12

THAT WAS

A Novel by L. SPHAGUE de CAMP

Bulnes, adventurer, and Flin, scholar . . . the search lor a beautiful
woman took these 27th Century men to Greece of the Golden Age!

I

T he little auxiliary yawl Dagmar II
crept through a blanket of black fog
towards Zea Harbor in Pirefs, the sea-
port of Athens. She pitched slowly over
the smooth swells under sail alone, be-
cause her power-plant had been ruined
when she ran through the force wall.

On the quarterdeck, the owner of the
Dagmar (for whose mistress the yacht
was named) strained his eyes into the
dark — a tall lean fellow pushing forty,
with reddish-brown stubble on his
cheeks that would soon match his
mousquetaire mustache. His face com-
bined a swarthy complexion, a hint of a

high-cheeked oriental look (from his
Filipino grandmother) and wavy hair
of an incongruous light-brown, reced-
ing at the temples.

Knut Bulnes strained his wits to
imagine what he would find in the har-
bor, as if by sheer brain-power he could
pierce the fog. Not, surely, the normal
bustle of one of the eastern Medi-
terranean’s busiest ports. Greece and
its adjacent islands had been closed to
the world for over a dozen years, ever
since Rudolf Lenz, Prime Minister of
the World Parliament, had allowed
Vasil the Ninth, Emperor of the Earth,

14 STARTLING STORIES

to erect the force-wall around that land
for h’s own secret purposes.

Bulnes called down into the cabin :
“We should see the Fretis light, but we
don’t.”

“In this muck?” came the high voice
of his shipmate. Wiyem Flin was down
in the cabin, spinning the generator-
crank that powered the radar set.

In his endeavor to get into the Re-
served Territory, partly to help Flin to
hunt for his missing wife Thalia and
partly in hopes of getting a sensational
story for Trends (London), of which
he was article editor (for even Lenz,
with his near-dictatorial powers, had
not yet succeeded in clamping a press
censorship on Great Britain) , Bulnes
had run the Dagmar II up to the force
wall on a night of storm. Then, when
lightning had knocked out the circuit-
breakers on the island of Antikythera
(an occurence he. had anticipated), he
had rushed through.

But the electric power had come back
on before they were completely through.
Bulnes remembered the aurora-like
glow that had reappeared around them,
the crazy jerking of his muscles — and
then, just as they were safely inside,
no power in the ship. The electric
surge had split the great barium-ti-
tanite crystal that powered the Dagmar.
Hence the use of the hand-crank on the
radar, and the stubble on Bulnes’s face,
for want of power for his electric razor.

He called to Flin again: “Take an-
other spin on the crank, will you?”

The exasperating little man had to
be pushed into anything in the nature
of physical work. He had even had the
infernal gall to give Bulnes unasked
advice about his private life — telling
him that he ought to marry Dagmar
Mekrei. The missing Thalia, he said,
had urged it, and she knew about such
things. Flin taught dead languages at
a boys’ school in the country; Bulnes
had come to know him when Flin sold
him, for Trends, a series of articles on
Roman ruins.

Flin’s voice came out of the cabin:

“Tliere seem to be some small ships
anchored ... I should say about thirty
meters at the largest. Docks and ship-
sheds around the edge too. Bear lef —
I mean to port.”

“Are we through the entrance,
please?”

“Just about ... a little to starboard
. . . I see more anchored ships on the
screen . . . don’t they show lights?”

“Not a light. Find me a clear space
and we’ll anchor.”

At least, thought Bulnes, they should
soon uncover the mystery of why they
had not seen a single ship or aircraft
since entering the Reserved Territory.

“Righto. Bear a point to port . . . lit-
tle more ...”

“You’ll have to drop anchor by hand.
Say when and I’ll bring her about.
Watch your head if we have to jibe.”

After a while Flin’s voice came :
“Here you are!”

pULNES spun the wheel. The Dag-
-L® mar II did a tight turn and luffed,
sails flapping gently. Flin bounced out
of the cabin and scrambled forward,
alm.ost fall’iig over the side. Bulnes
could see the diTused light of his head-
lamp and hear the rattle of the anchor-
chain. The yacht drifted shoreward
until stopped by the chain. Bulnes and
Flin lowered the sails.

“Quietest place I ever sa,w,” said
Flin. “We ought to hear ships loading
over in the Kantharos.”

Bulnes yawned. “I hear somebody
talking on shore, so the place can’t be
utterly deserted. Might as well make
ourselves comfortable until morning.
Hell, it’s not yet midnight.”

“Aren’t v/e liable to be run down
without lights?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t know what
to do about it.”

“Why not take the bulbs out and put
candles in their places?”

“Good!” said Bulnes, surprised to
hear his companion come up with a
sensible suggestion for once. “You take
care of it; I want a look at the radar

THE GLORY

scope.” He went below.

When the radar screen flashed into
light he saw the outline of Zea Harbor
surrounding them, with the anchored
ships and the piers showing clearly.
Though it looked different from the
charts, Knut Bulnes was still sure he
had not entered the Munihia Harbor
by mistake.

The light on the screen was fading
when movement caught his attention.
He spun the crank again and threw the
switch.

“Hey, Bil !” he called, cranking furi-
ously. The generator w'hined.

Flin’s face appeared. “What is it?

I haven’t got the starboard — ”

THAT WAS 15

murmur of voices, a ripple of water,
a rhythmic thumping. He cupped his
hands :

“Keep off!”

In the rising murmur he could not
tell if he was answered. He called
again, in Romaic. The noise became
louder. He shouted again, then said to
Flin, “Know where the signal flares
are? Get some quick!”

The sounds grew louder yet. The un-
seen ship must contain many people all
talking at once : an excursion-boat, per-
haps. Somebody chanted above the
general noice : “Rhyppapai! Papai!
Rhyppapai! Papal!”

The approaching ship must now be

I F PERIKLES the Athenian could come back to life and read our
“histories” of the ancient Greece of his day, he’d probably laugh
himself sick. But this is no more than you can expect after history has
been written and rewritten, edited to suit the ideas of rulers and
theologians, and generally batted around from pillar to post. Con-
scientious historians have longed for the power to go back and
actually be present, with a stenographer, at some of the great mo-
ments of the past. Suppose you could be set down in the streets of
Athens, could listen to Sokrates the Wise, Anaxagoras the astron-
omer, Euripedes the playwright — ^actually hear them utter the words
that made the golden age of Greece so great. Would you be inspired
— or disappointed?

That chance came to our heroes, a pair of modern men. And they
made quite a thing of it — as you shall see.

— The Editor

“Kindly look at this!” Bulnes pointed
to the object, unmistakably a ship mov-
ing through the harbor entrance toward
them.

“Looks like a dashed centipede!” said
Flin.

“Hurry with that other light, if you
please, and if you hear ’em, tell ’em to
keep off.”

Flin hurried out again. Bulnes took
onp more spin, then snatched up a flash-
light and went out on deck after him.
Cocking his ears against the opaque
dark he heard a medley of sounds: a

so close that her stem might appear
any time. In the fog, higher than Bul-
nes’s head, a light-spot grew to a hazy
red ball.

“Here they are,” panted Flin. “I had
to hunt — ”

“Get away! Scram! Keep off!”
screamed Bulnes in Modern Greek,
Italian, Spanish, and Arabic.

From the darkness a voice answered
“Ti?” and followed this word with a
rattle of syllables Bulnes could not
make out, though it sounded not unlike
his native Spanish. The “Rhyppapai!

16 STARTLING STORIES

Papai!’* grew louder, keeping time with
the thump and splash as of many oars.

The blood-red ball became brighter.
Bulnes snatched up one of the flares
and ignited it with his cigarette-lighter.

The red ball became a fire-pot on the
bow of a ship. Bulnes glimpsed a group
of men around the fire-pot. Then the
flare went off, just as something struck
the Dagmar II under water with a sick-
ening crunch.

T he yacht jerked. Bulnes, almost
thrown overboard, dropped the flare
to clutch for support, just as the ma-
genta flame shot out. The flare fell into
the water and was quenched with a
sizzle. The post or tripod on the strange
ship toppled forward, spilling coals
over the bow, and the men around it
grabbed at each other and at the rail.
The “ Rhyppapai!” stopped.

“You bustards!” screamed Bulnes.
“Cabrones!”

Shouts came from the other ship,
and water swirled as it began to back
away.

Bulnes thrust his head into the cabin.
By the light of his headlamp he could
see that the floor-boards were already
wet, and an ominous gurgle from be-
low told the rest of the tale. Bulnes
snatched the sail-winch crank from its
bracket and rushed out again.

“Wiyem!” he shouted. “We’re fill-
ing! Pull up the anchor, please.”

Bulnes ^cranked the sail-winches
furiously, taking the jibs first so that
the faint air filled these and swung the
yacht’s bow shoreward. Water was
sloshing over the duckboards by the
time the sails were up and the ship slid-
ing toward shore.

“She moves awfully slowly,” said
Flin.

“Not much wind, and she’s low in the
water.”

Fuming, Bulnes searched the fog for
signs of shore. The water was up to
his' ankles.

“Did you see what I saw?” said Flin.
“You mean that ship, like some an-

tique out of a history-book?”

“More than that. It was a Classical
trireme.”

“I thought so. Somebody must be
making a movie.”

“Could be,” said Flin dubiously.

“What holed us? The bow of that
thing was nowhere near the Dagmar.”

“If it was a real trireme it would
have a ram sticking out just below the
surface of the water.”

“What were those people talking?
They didn’t seem to understand any of
the Mediterranean languages.”

“Dashed if I know. Is that something
ahead?”

Dark irregularities appeared in the
fog forward. The sounds from the' gal-
ley had sunk to a mere murmur. Bulnes
said: “Drop the mainsail. This looks
like a wharf.”

The water was up to his calves. The
wharf solidified, but a couple of small
ships tied up to it occupied all the avail-
able space.

Bulnes said : “She’s going down any
minute. As soon as we touch those
ships, jump on to them.”

fX'HE Dagmar II brushed gently along-

side the nearest ship, a faint blur of
curved lines in; the blackness. Bulnes
released the v/heel, took two splashing
steps, and leaped for the rail. The Dag-
mar II, as if this latest jar had upset
a precarious balance, shuddered and
slid below the surface of the bay. The
candle-stubs in the riding-lights were
snuffed out v/ith tiny hisses, like the
spitting of a frightened kitten.

Bulnes swung himself over the rail
of the other ship, then turned as Flin
said : “Help me, Knut ! I’m stuck !”

Bulnes found his companion hanging
on to the rail with his hands while his
feet thrashed the water. He hauled the
plump schoolteacher over the rail.

“Ouch!” said Flin. “You needn’t be
so blasted rough, you know. Oh, dear,
my good clothes and passport and
everything!”

“Clothes! How about my ship?”

THE GLORY THAT WAS

“She’s insured, isn’t she?’’

“Yes, but — I loved that little boat.”

“Rotten luck, but I should think she
could be raised.”

“There is that.” Bulnes blew his
nose and straightened his lip. The
Dagmar was one of the few things in
the world he was sentimental about.

“What worries me more,” said Flin,
“is that this thing we’re on is of antique
design too. Just put your hand on these
timbers; you can feel the adze-marks.”

“We’ll worry about that in the morn-
ing. Come on; got your money?”

“Yes, thank goodness. That and our
clothes and my pocket radio and your
case-knife are about our only worldly
goods at the moment.”

Bulnes felt his way to the opposite
side of the ship and climbed over the
rail to the pier. He found himself on
a flat stone-paved surface. Ahead, low
structures loomed. Bulnes led Flin a
step at a time across the wharf until
his groping hand found a wall, then
along the wall to a corner.

The darkness lay thick ahead. Creep-
ing along this street away from the
waterfront they came to another inter-
section. A ruddiness in the fog to the
right suggested a fire, and voices came
from that .direction.

“Shall we try ’em?” said Bulnes.

“I suppose we might as well.”

HEY walked in the direction of the
light, which underwent the same trans-
formation that had occurred when the
trireme rammed them. The ruddiness
solidified into a red globe, like a plane-
tary nebula contracting into a star. The
red ball in turn became a wood-fire
crackling in an iron cage atop a stone
pillar in the middle of an intersection.

Bulnes saw people: four men squat-
ting or kneeling in a circle, looking in-
ward at the ground, while two others
stood behind them watching. At the
sound of footsteps they looked around.

PERIKLES

All had beards and were dressed in
shapeless pieces of cloth wrapped
around their persons. Bare arms and
legs protruded from these sartorial
bundles. They stank powerfully of gar-
lic, onions, and unwashed human hide.

As the nearest man, who had his back
to them, swiveled around on his heels,
Bulnes caught sight of a little group of
white objects on the ground. He had
evidently interrupted a crap-game.

“Pos ise?” he said in Reformed Ro-
maic, the official language of twenty-
seventh-century Greece.

The men looked at one another. One
made an unintelligible remark. Al-
though the language sounded European,
it had a curious singsong quality like
the polytonic languages of the Far
East.

18 STARTLING STORIES

Bulnes repeated his greeting. Again
the interchange of syllables in the un-
known tongue, and a laugh. Six pairs
of dark eyes were focussed on Bulnes
with no very encouraging expression.

Beside him Flin burst out: “Knut!
I’ll swear they’re talking Classical
Greek !”

“Caray! Suppose you take over,
then.”

“I don’t know . . . I’ll try, but we
don’t learn to use the stuff colloquially
in school, you know.” Flin addressed
the men :

“ Chair e!”

All the men were now up. The near-
est was shorter than the others but very
broad of chest and thick of biceps.
“Chaire,” repeated this one, his pitch
sliding up and down on the first syl-
lable.

“Pos echeis?” said Flin, giving the
Classical equivalent of Bulnes’s greet-
ing.

“Agathon,” grinned the stocky man.
More remarks flew among the six. Bul-
nes asked:

“What are they saying?”

“Can’t quite make out, but I jolly
well don’t like it. I’ll ask the way to an
inn.”

Flin began piecing together a sen-
tence, a word at a time, as if he were
assembling a puzzle. Bulnes noted that
one of the men casually picked up a
club that he had left lying on the
ground. This was going to be like that
time in Bombay. He glanced at the
sheath-knife at his own v.mist. When
Flin had finished his sentence, Bulnes
murmured: “Got a knife in your
pocket?”

“Y-yes, but . . .”

“Get your hand on it, please. If they
jump us, try to get your back to the
pillar.”

Bulnes and Flin stood about as far
from the pillar as the strange sextet,
who had been playing their game at
some distance from its base because
the fire did not illuminate the ground
directly below itself. Flin started his

sentence again, but the six seemed not
to be paying attention. Instead they
leaned toward the stocky one, listening
to the words he muttered.

Bulnes quietly unsnapped the retain-
ing-loop that held the upper end of his
knife-handle, then started to peel off
his greasy work- jacket. He had it
partly off when the burly man said
something that sounded as if it began
with “happy teeth.”

At the same time that man’s fist came
out of his swathings with a knife.

A S THE six, spreading out into a
crescent with the horns forward,
advanced with knives and cudgels, Flin
uttered a mouse-like noise and ducked
behind Knut Bulnes.

Bulnes took a step forward and
aimed a terrific kick at the crotch of the
stocky leader. As his rope-soled es-
padrille sank home, the stout man fell
to his hands and knees with a howl that
hurt Bulnes’s eardrums.

By this time Bulnes had his jacket
off. With a jerk he coiled it around his
left forearm, at the samxe time drawing
his case-knife with his other hand. As
one of the men stepped forward, bring-
ing clown a knife-bearing fist in an
overhand stab, Bulnes caught the point
of the knife in the jacket. With an un-
derhand outward thrust he stabbed the
man in the solar plexus. The man
gulped and fell.

Then Bulnes had his back to the pil-
lar, his eyes flicking from man to man.
He Vvas dimly aware of Wiyem Flin
beside him making feints with a pocket-
knife.

Now that two of their comrades
were down, the four remaining attack-
ers seemed somehow to have lost their
elan. They danced in and out, arms
upraised for a stab or a blow, crying:
“Epitithete! Sphazete autous!” but not
closing.

Bulnes caught another blow on his
rolled-up jacket. Although his left ai-m
was beginning to feel sore, each time
they came in he drove them back with

THE GLORY

feints and thrusts. His task v/as light-
ened by the fact that these ladrones
seemed not to know any way of using
a dagger except the easily-blocked over-
hand stab. The stout man Bulnes had
kicked was now getting up.

A sound beside him drew the atten-
tion of Bulnes in time to see Wiyem
Flin, having taken a cudgel-blow on the
pate, slide limply to the ground. Now
Bulnes knew there was no chance for
him, as one man, be he never so agile,
cannot face in three directions at
once . . .

Another sound pierced the foggy
night: a vjkish of cloven air concluded
by the sharp report of wood striking
a human cranium. The burly man
whom Bulnes had kicked in the belly
staggered forward, plowing through
the semicircle of his own people with
head down as if to butt Bulnes in the
midriff.

As the man came near, Bulnes
brought his fist up in an underhand jab,
sinking his knife-blade into the fellow’s
throat. At the same time the noise
from beyond the circle was heard
again: ivhsht-thuck! whsht-thuck! to-
gether with a hoarse yell.

The stoutish man, spraying blood
from his throat-wound, collapsed across
the body of Flin, while Bulnes sighted
another figure leaping about behind his
assailants, beating them over their
heads with a stick or staff and shout-
ing. The remaining attackers turned
in confusion to see who was taking them
in the rear. . Then the whole lot were
gone save for the dwindling slap of
their feet on the dirt.

As his rescuer came forward into the
firelight, Bulnes saw a stocky bearded
man wearing what first looked like an
outfit of modern working-clothes. How-
ever, the firelight soon showed pro-
found diffei'ences ; trousers tucked into
soft-leather boots; a jacket of coarse
material whose hem dipped to a low
point in front and which was held closed
by a wide belt, without benefit of but-
tons. And on his head he wore a kind

THAT WAS 13

of gnomish felt helmet or cap that cov-
ered his ears and rose to a tall point,
his long hair escaping from under its
lower edge. His weapon was an un-
strung bow, and from his belt a quiver-
ful of arrows hung over one hip.

“ Chair e!” said the newcomer, and
followed the salutation with a string
of gibberish.

Bulnes shook his head and replied in
the modern Greek dimodiki: “Thanks,
but who are you? Where are we?”

More unintelligible sounds.

“Is this,” (Bulnes waved an armj
“Pirefs?”

Light dawned on the stranger’s face.
“Esti ho Peiraieus !” he said, giving the
name of the port its full Classical form,
and then went off into another spate of
chatter.

B ulnes turned to succor Flin, whose
balding head was rising by slow
bobbles out of the cone of darkness
around the base of the pillar. Flin’s
uncertain voice came: “Ei Skythotox-
otes?”

“Pany men oun,” replied the man.
He and Flin spoke, the former swiftly,
Flin more slowly. Flin turned to Bul-
nes : “He’s a copper. One of the corps
of so-called Scythian archers, slave-
policemen owned by the city of Athens
in ancient times. Where the deuce are
my glasses?”

“How’d he happen to be here so op-
portunely?”

“His present duty is that of night
guard in the Arsenal of Philon, and he
heard the racket. He wants to know
what part of Greece you come from;
says you have- the strangest accent he
ever heard.”

“No use telling him I’m from three
thousand years in the future, if I am.
Is that really Classical Greek you’re
chattering?”

“Absolutely, though he seems to have
a terrific accent himself . . . ah, here
they are!” Flin had found his glasses.

'The archer spoke. Flin translated:
“He says we. shall have to come with

20 STARTLING STORIES

him to the office of his superior here in
the Peiraieus. We shall be held there for
the rest of the night, and tomorrow we
shall be tal<en up to Athens for a hear-
ing before the Polemarchos.”

“Who’s he?”

“The chap who presides over criminal
cases involving foreigners.”

Bulnes said : “Whatever weird sort
of business is going on, I don’t care to
be caught up in the official gears. Ask
him who these stiffs are, if you please.”

“He says the fat one is a notorious
local gangster, a lieutenant of someone
called Phaleas.”

“Then even he should be able to see
we’re guilty of no crime. Why can’t
we bribe him to help us drop the corpses
in the harbor and let us go?”

“But— but — ”

“If this lad’s a slave they probably
don’t pay him anything, so he’s used to
grafting a bit in order to enjoy some
of the comforts of life. Go ahead, ask
him.”

Flint put his question and reported ;
“He won’t say yes or no. It depends
on the amount, I suspect.”

“What’s the purchasing power of our
coins?”

“Rather high. One should be able to
live comfortably for a month on a mod-
ern half-kraun.”

TJULNES dug into the change-pocket
of his dungarees and examined his
change by the firelight. He handed
Flin a frank or twenty-pen piece and
said: “Try this.”

There followed a lengthy palaver. At
last the archer grinned and popped the
coin into his mouth. Flin said : “I ex-
plained it’s a Tartessian drachme. We’re
Tartessians.”

“What are Tartessians, if you
please?”

“And you a Spaniard ! Tartessos was
a famous ancient city that once flour-
ished near Cadiz. Since the Tartessians
were considered a rich and civilized
people, I thought passing ourselves off
as such would give us prestige.”

The archer leaned his bow-stave
against the pillar, knelt, and began to
strin the bodies.

“What’s he doing?” said Bulnes.

“He says that, confidentially, he sells
their clothes and effects. If we don’t
tell on him, he won’t tell on us.”

“What does he expect to get for
them?”

“Since they were rather well worn to
begin with, and now have got knife-
holes and bloodstains, he doubts he can
get a couple of oboloi apiece.”

“How much was an obolos?”

“About two pens. There are a cou-
ple!”

The archer had thrust a finger into
the mouth of one of the corpses and dug
out a couple of plump little coins about
as big around as a pencil. After a simi-
lar investigation of the other cadaver
he stood up with the bundle of gar-
ments over his arm, picked up his bow,
and with his other hand grasped the
ankle of the gang-leader’s corpse. He
spoke.

Flin said : “He wants us to help him
drag these bodies to the waterfront!”

“What’s wrong with that? Take the
other end of the big stiff and I’ll manage
the little one myself.”

“Touch them? I — I can’t!” bleated
Flin.

“Su madre!” roared Bulnes, then got
control of himself. “My dear old man,
please pull yourself together, unless you
want to get your fool throat cut.”

Ill

jB- hey set off into the darkness,
dragging the bodies through the mud.
Bulnes said : “He agrees we’re at Pirefs,
but we might try to find out when.”

“I’ll ask him ... he says it’s the
archonship of Apseudes.”

“When was that? Or perhaps I
should say when is it?”

“Blessed if I know.”

Bulnes, hauling on the wrists of his
corpse, frowned into the darkness.
“Either we’ve gone back in time, the

21

22 SrAKl'LING STORIES

way they do in those fanciful stories,
or somebody’s staging a colossal hoax.
You might ask him about places to
sleep.”

“He says there’s an inn for sailors,
but it’s full of bed-bugs.”

“Hm. And I suppose we shall be
either swindled bv the inn-keeper or
murdered by another gang of cut-
throats . . .”

They came to a pavement ending in
a sea-wall, beyond which Bulnes saw
the glimmer of water. The lap and
gurgle of waves came from below.

“ Ballet e!” said the archer. Bulnes
heaved on his corpse, and the naked
body splashed into the water; The
other followed.

Bulnes thought fast. Unless pre-
vented, the archer would now amble off
into the night, leaving him and Flin to
start their hunt for shelter all over
again. He said : “Let’s walk him back
to his arsenal. What’s his name?”

“Triballos. I’ve told him you’re Bou-
leus and I’m Philon.”

Bulnes thought that Flin had showh
more presence of mind than one would
have expected of him. The Scythian
would have to be used with care. On
one hand the man was a link to this
strange world they had blundered into.
On the other, Triballos, though tech-
nically a slave, was an official, and some-
thing told Bulnes that contact with offi-
cials, real or pretended, was to be avoid-
ed by a pair of illegal visitors. More-
over, whatever the true explanation of
this colossal anachronism, he could see
that the salvaging of the yawl, as a pre-
liminary to a quiet departure, was apt
to present terrific complications.

Another formless fiery glow appeared
in the fog. As Bulnes came closer he
.‘ aw it w’as made by a torch in a wall-
Iracket on the front of a large building.

Bulnes fished out his daim and handed
it to Flin, saying: “Kindly tell him
we’ll give him this for those costumes
and a lodging for the night in his ar-
senal.”

“\/liat d’you want with those rags?”

“You’ll see. Tell him, please.”

When the offer had been translated
the archer looked at the coin, weighed
it in his palm, and finally broke into a
grin.

“He says all right,” said Flin.

fT’HE Scyth pushed open one of the

two big doors, took the torch from
its bracket, an'’ led the travellers in-
side. The building proved long and
relatively narrow. They stood at one
end of a central nave bounded by two
rows of pillars. A stone ballustrade
connected the pillars of each row, with
a bronze lattice-work gate in each in-
tercohimnation. On the sides of the
building, beyond the columns, Bulnes
could see the spidery shapes of frames
on which sails were stretched, and piles
of spars, oars, and timbers.

“Entauthoi!” said the archer, leaning
his bow against the ballustrade to free
one arm. He opened one of the gates
and led the visitors to a stair that
tv^'isted up to the gallery overhead.
Here the flicker of the torch showed
shelves along the outer wall of the build-
ing (interrupted at intervals by win-
dows) on which were piled coils of rope.
Thicicer hawsers were coiled on the
floor. Triballos spoke.

“He says,” said Flin, “we can sleep
on the rope, but we shall have to be up
and out before dawn so as not to get
him into trouble.”

Bulnes watched as the torch receded
down the stairs, throwing back dis-
toiled shadows.

“What’s your opinion,” he asked Flin,
“about this alleged ancient Greece?
Have we slipped back in time, or is it all
an act? Or are we dreaming or dead?”

“I think we’re really back in ancient
Attika.”

“Why, my dear sir?”

“The little details. It’d be fantastic
to put on such an act.”

“You think the Emp has some sort
of time-machine that works inside his
force-wall, so he can run history over
like a film?”

THS GLOEY

“Somethine: like that.”

“Won’t work, comrade.”

“Why not?” said Flin.

“It involves a paradox. The acts we
commit in the ancient Greece v/ould
affect all subsequent history. There-
fore when our own century comes
around we shall never be born as and
when we were, so we shan’t exist to go
back to ancient Greece to commit those
acts.”

“We haven’t affected history yet.”

“We’ve killed two men, fought four
others, and bribed still another.”

“But they’re not persons of impor-
tance !”

“Still, I can imagine 'the effect of
these acts spreading out like ripples
until they affect the entire fabric of
history.”

Flin said : “Well then, if we’d affected
history we should have vanished like a
puff of smoke, I suppose. And since
we haven’t vanished, it’s evident your
paradox won’t hold water.”

“If you assume that this is ancient
Attika. I should say it were evident,
rather, that we aren’t back in time. By
the way, have you any more exact idea
of when we are? ‘Ancient Greece’
covers a lot of centuries.”

“Mmm,” said Flin. “While I don’t
know when Apseudes was archon, I
think this ruddy building was built in
the later fifth century B. C. Therefore
we can’t be earlier than that. And
from the pronunciation I should guess
it wasn’t much later than that — later
fifth — either, though I haven’t yet
spoken to enough people to be sure.”

“When does that put us? At the time
of the Persian invasions?”

“No, later. The age of Perikles and
the Peloponnesian War, sometimes
called the Golden Age of Greece. I’m
morally certain it’s the real thing, too.”

“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions yet,”
Bulnes said sleepily. “Just because we
find a section of Pirefs put back into
its Periklean condition, and see a few
characters flitting about in bedspreads,
we shouldn’t conclude that all Greece

THAT WAS 23

has been likewise transformed.” He
yawned. “In the morning we can go out
and ask anybody if he’s seen Aristotle.”

S EVERAL factors conspired to
awaken Knut Bulnes well before the
sunrise of which Triballos had warned
him: the song of the birds, the sound
of voices without, the snores of Wiyem
Flin, and the unyielding nature of the
pile of rope that Bulnes had made his
bed.

Giving up the struggle for sleep,
Bulnes sat up rubbing his itchy eyes.
Flin still lay asleep, a large lump show-
ing in the pre-dawn light through the
sparse hair that thinly veiled his pink
scalp.

Bulnes stood up and went to the
nearest window: a simple rectangular
hole in the wall provided with a crude
wooden shutter, now left wide open. The
immediate neighborhood seemed to be
fllled with buildings not at all like
gracefully columnated Greek temples:
crudely plain one-story brick structures
without any exterior windows or dec-
orations.

The owners of two of the voices that
had wakened him came in sight : a pair
of young women in long draped cover-
ings, each balancing a large jar on her
shoulder. Slave-girls fetching the day’s
household water from the nearest pub-
lic fountain, thought Bulnes. If a fake,
it was a most convincing one.

As the girls passed out of sight a
man hurried in the other direction bear-
ing a bundle upon his shoulder. His
single garment was merely an oversized
sack with holes for his arms and his
head. In the quai‘ter-hour that followed
others appeared. Bulnes watched fasci-
nated until the waxing light warned
him that he would do well to waken
Flin.

Flin, shaken, muttered: “Nex’ watch
already? Where are my oilskins . . .
oh, goodness gracious, then it wasn’t
just a bad dream of being back in an-
cient Greece !”

He bounced up from his coil of rope

24

and hurried to the window,
marked :

“You’ve been talking about how you’d
love to step back into ancient Attika,
my dear Bil, so now’s your chance. I
fear, however, we shall be conspicuous
in dungarees and yachting-caps.”

“You mean to wear those?” Flin
indicated the heap of native garments
salvaged from the casualties of the
night before.

“Yes,” said Bulnes. “How the devil
d’you put ’em on?”

“We’d better look them over for —
ah — parasites first.”

They dragged the garments to the
window, shook them, and began inspect-
ing. Bulnes said: “Hell, this thing’s
nothing but a big rectangle of cloth.”

“Of course. That’s a Doric chiton.
Ah, got one!”

“Good for you. How d’you wear it?”

“Fold it so and wrap it around you
under the armpits. These safety-pins
fasten it together over both shoulders
and along the open side. If you’ll take
off your clothes I’ll drape you.”

“I feel like the model of some damned
coutourier,” said Bulnes, his skin mak-
ing goose-pimples in the cool of the
morning. “Ouch !”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to prick you.
There!”

Bulnes took a few experimental steps.
“Draftiest damned thing I ever wore.
Now it’s your turn, dear comrade . . .
what are the remaining pieces? The
big ones?”

“Himatia or cloaks. You drape one
around yourself any way you like.”

Bulnes experimented with the blan-
ketlike rectangle of cloth. “Shouldn’t
there be belts to go around these che-
mises?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t see any.
Perhaps they got lost in the dark.”

“Then we’ll steal a little of the
Athenian navy’s cordage,” said Bulnes,
making for a pile of light rope with his
knife.

“What about our things?”

“You can stuff your watch and

pocket-knife into your wallet and hang
your wallet over your belt, I suppose.
Our own clothes we shall have to wad
up and hide here.”

Flin looked out the window. “I say,
the fog’s gone and the sun’ll be up any
minute.”

“We shall have to go then.” Bulnes
tried on the larger of the two pairs of
sandals that had belonged to the dead
men.

“And start hunting for Thalia?”

“Not so fast! We don’t even know
she’s here yet. We want to know just
what we’ve gotten into first. Also we
shall have to secure a supply of meals,
and you’ll have to teach me enough
Classical Greek to get along on.”

Flin rested his chain in his hand, then
snatched away the hand. “We can’t
even shave— though this seems to be
one of the bearded periods. At that we
shall be conspicuous in these whiskers.”
He stroked his mustache and goatee.

“A few more shaveless days’ll fix
that. Where can we get our money
changed?”

Flin frowned in concentration.
“There was a building here called the
Deigma where the bankers had tables.
They’ll probably try to swindle us.”

“When would they be open for busi-
ness?”

“Around dawn. Nearly everything
starts at that time.”

Bulnes shuddered.

IV

^E'hE streets were filling fast, not
only with men in the garb of ancient
Greece, but also with others: a few
Negroes, some slender shaven men
whom Flin identified as Egyptians,
bearded ones in jerseys and kilts who
he said were Phoenicians, and various
others. From time to time Bulnes and
Flin were forced to drop their dignity
to dodge a burden-beast, a cart, or the
contents of a slop-pail.

They climbed partway up to hill of
the Munibia (or Mounychia as Flin

STARTLING STORIES

Bulnes re-

THE GLORY

called it) near the arsenal, until their
street petered out. Thence they saw
the checker-board plan of the Peiraieus
stretching off to the southwest. In the
other direction the Long Walls extended
several miles inland towards Athens
proper. The sun was just rising over
the oak-clad swell of Mount Hymettos,
though the city lay still in shadow. As
the sunlight compassed Mount Aigaleos
to the north and crept eastward across
the valley, something gleamed over dis-
tant Athens.

Flin burst out: “It’s the helmet of
the Athene of Pheidias — the so-called
Athene Promachos — on the Akropolis!
They said you could see it from here.
This must be real !’’

“What’s that, a statue?”

“A big one, ten meters tall. I say,
this is simply wonderful !”

When Flin had feasted his eyes they
walked back down the hill towards the
Kantharos Harbor, passing an open
space in which stood a number of stat-
ues and other monuments, among which
hucksters shouted their wares. The
thickening crowd was almost entirely
male. Nobody paid Bulnes and Flin
any attention.

“Doesn’t it stink to high heaven?”
said Flin.

Soon they found the Deigma : a huge
covered colonnade full of noisy hu-
manity. The garlic stench was almost
overpowering.

One section of the Deigma was de-
voted to banks. Each bank comprised
a large table at which sat the banker, _
surrounded by his slaves, his cash-
boxes, and his rolls of papyrus accounts.
In front of most of these tables a group
of customers bad lined up for business.

“How much change have you?” in-
quired Bulnes.

Flin counted. “Three franks, four
daims, one five-pen, six pens, three half-
pens.”

“Take a frafik and try three or four
of these fellows to see who’ll give us
the best price.”

“Dash it all, I hate haggling,” grum-

THAT WAS 25

bled Flin, but lined up before the first
banker’s table.

By the time he had reached the third
lineup, Flin was complaining about his
feet. Even Bulnes admitted feeling a
little faint from hunger and from the
waves of garlic odor.

“Just this once,” he said, “and we’ll
decide which to deal with ...”

“Hey!” said a third voice in English.
“Are you the guj^s who showed up in
the Peiraieus last night in civilized
clothes and was attacked by Phaleas’
gang?”

B ulnes and Flin turned. There
stood a muscular young man with
a round snub-nosed innocent-looking
face, clad like their rescuer of the pre-
vious night in coat, pants, and pointed
cap, and leaning on the bow of a Scyth-
ian archer.

“Yes,” said Bulnes. “Who are you,
my dear sir?”

The youth advanced with hand out-
stretched. “My name’s Diksen, Roi
Diksen, from Yonkers. The Cricks
calls me Pardokas.”

Bulnes and Flin identified themselves,
the latter adding: “What are Yonkers?”

“A town in the U. S. A. You guys
English?”

Bulnes said: “Flin is; I am by adop-
tion only.”

“Where’d you come from originally,
huh?”

“I’m technically Spanish, though by
descent I’m a little of everything.”
“You talk kind of like an American.”
“I went to school there. How’d you
hear about us?”

“Triballos told me, so I came down
from Athens to find you.”

“How’d you get off from duty?”
“This is my off -time; I’m on night
patrol work. What you two up to?
Changing your dough into this Crick
stuff?”

“Yes,” said Bulnes.

“When you get done, ain’t there some
place we can talk?”

“How about a place to eat? We

2(5 STARTLING STORIES

haven’t had breakfast, and it must be
nearly noon.”

The young man’s face took on a look
of disgust. “A-a-agh, these Gricks
don’t know nothing about real break-
fast. They stick a hunk of bread in
their lousy wine and call that a meal.
But you guys want lunch. Okay, I know
a joint.”

Flin had reached the head of his line.
Since this banker offered a rate of ex-
change a shade over those of the pre-
ceding two, Flin and Bulnes disposed
of all their silver and copper.

“Lead on,” said Bulnes to Roi Diksen.

T he “Scythian” conducted them out
of the Deigma. The spring day had
turned clear and cloudless. Diksen
stopped at the Agora and directed his
companions to buy what they wanted
for lunch: “. . . on account of these
joints’ll cook grub for you but they
don’t carry it themselves; you gotta
bring it with you.”

They turned in at an inn where they
sat on benches facing each other across
an elongated table.

“At least,” said Bulnes, “it only
stinks to low heaven here.”

The meal that Diksen had assembled
comprised a huge piece of bread, a
bunch of onions swimming in oil, and
a mug of wine. Bulnes tasted the wine.

“Phew!” he said. “Essence of pine-
cones !”

“You get used to it,” said Diksen,
“like you get used to the way they soak
everything in olive-oil. 0 Kallingos!”
He spoke to the proprietor in broken
Greek and handed him the onions.

Bulnes said : “Now, Mr. Diksen,
what’s your story?”

“Well, it’s like this, see? I save up
the dough I get working for Kaplen’s
Hardware Store in Yonkers so I can
take me a trip to Europe on my vaca-
tion. My girl thinks I need Culture.
Anyway, everything goes fine till I get
to Beograd. I’m walking through that
big cathedral with the other trippers
listening to the guide spout ancient his-

torv when everything goes black and I
wake up at sea.”

“What sea?” asked Bulnes.

“Dunno exactly; somewheres north
of here. I’m in this boat with chains
on my wrists and ankles, see, and a lot
of other poor devils with me. We’re
in a kind of a pen at the bow, and the
rest of the ship’s full of guys pulling
on long oars. I ask the nearest one
what gives, but we don’t understand
each other’s languages. These Gricks
is all pretty ignorant ; there ain’t a one
of ’em speaks English or ever heard of
the Dodgers.”

“Dodgers?” murmured Flin wonder-
ingly.

Diksen continued: “At night the
sailors steer the boat into shore and
run the bow on the beach so they can
get out to stretch and sleep, but they
leave us in the boat with a couple of
guys with spears to see we don’t try
nothing. After a coupla days we come
to the Peiraieus. I’m all the time wait-
ing to wake up from this horrible
dream, but I don’t. They take us to a
place where they sell slaves; nobody
told me but I figured it out. They take
off our clothes and make us stand on
the block like in the movies while guys
bid for us.

“When my turn comes I stand up
feeling kinda funny on account of
there’s a coupla broads watching, but
these Gricks is all nudists, see, and
don’t make no never-mind. The auc-
tioneer pokes me and hollers to look
see how strong I am. He even raps me
on the silver plate I got in my head on
account of I was in an automobile acci-
dent a coupla years ago. I don’t like
it, but what can I do about it?

“By and by a jerk comes up and talks
to the auctioneer and then asks me
something. I don’t get it, so he does
sign-language of shooting a bow and
arrow. I never shot no' bows and ar-
rows since I was six, so I shake my
head. But since that means ‘yes’ among
the Gricks, the jerk thinks I can shoot.
So he goes into a huddle with the auc-

THE GLORY

tioneer, and next I know me and two
other guys is being marched all the way
to the police barracks in Athens.

“When I get onto the language a little
I find out the jerk is a police commis-
sioner sent down to buy three new cops
for the force. Good thing he thought
I said ‘yes’ because if he hadn’t I’d
have prob’ly been sent to the silver-
mines at Laureion and worked to death.

‘oiThe first days is rugged, on account
of the old-timers put us through the
jumps. I make like I don’t mind on
account of I know if I blow my top and
slug one of these bustards they’ll beat
me to a bloody, pulp. All the time I’m
trying to pick up a little Grick. Geez,

I hate languages! Anyway, when I
catch on to what kind of screwy outfit
this is, I figure I better learn to shoot
quick or it’s the silver-mines for me.
So I watch the boys practicing on the
archery-range, and when everybody’s
asleep after lunch I sneak out and shoot.
Since then I been trained and put on
regular patrol duty. As slavery it ain’t
too bad, though you got to watch your-
self, specially in the barracks. I never
seen such a damn bunch of swishes and
perverts in my life, and the Gricks is
the worst. So that’s my story. I musta
been here a year now. What’s yours,
gents?”

V

Mt OCGURRED to Bulnes that if the
young man were not what he seemed —
if he were really an agent of those who
managed this extraordinary business —
he already knew enough about the two
newcomers to cause them trouble. If,
on the other hand, he were kosher, there
was no reason to hold out on him.

- Bulnes accordingly told their story:
How Flin’s wife had disappeared years
before; how Dagmar’s friend Kaal
Beiker had passed on to Bulnes a rumor
that the Emperor’s secret police were
kidnapping all expatriate Greeks like
Thalia Flin and sending them back to
the Reserved Area; how he and Flin

THAT WAS 27

had put two and two together and had
resolved on a desperate gamble in fhe
hope of rescuing Thalia and expc^'ng
the Emperor’s mysterious machina-
tions.

Flin added his bit of gossip : “I was
talking to a colleague named Djounz,
Diksen — Maksel Djounz, the historian
— who knows a chap named Ogust
Adler, the curator of the Dresden Mu-
seum, D’you know those caves or rah.-
miims or whatever they are in Saxonv?”

“Uh-huh, I guess so,” said Diksen
vaguely. %

“Some years ago, Djounz says, Adler
got orders from His Majesty down the
chain of command to store some build-
ing-blocks in these caves. The blocks
proved to be pieces of building-stone
and marble — slabs, drums, every shape
— all carefxilly crated and numbered.
Train-loads of the things, enough to
build a city. Took Ogust nearly a year
to store them. A couple of the crates
broke in handling and he saw the blocks,
and says one bore a Classical inscrip-
tion. It’s as if the Emp had dismantled
all the ancient ruins in Greece and
shipped the pieces to Saxony for stor-
age.”

“You know,” said Diksen solemnly,
“there’s something funny about this
whole damn setup.”

“The prize understatement of the
year. Go on.”

“I mean, what the hell is this? Looks
like we been dumped back in one of
them ancient times they used to tell us
about in school. You know, Napoleon
and that sort of crap. I never paid no
attention to it, but maybe now I shoulda.
Say, would George Washington be alive
now?”

“No,” said Bulnes.

“Oh. But what I wanna know is,
what’s the deal? The gimmick? They
can’t really put us back in some other
time. It ain’t logical.”

“Precisely what we’ve been trying to
figure out,” said Bulnes. “Do you know
of any other cases like ours?”

“Well, one of the boys on the force

28 STARTLING STORIES

was telling about another guy, a few
months ago, who showed up in modern
clothes. I didn’t see him myself, but
they say he got sent to Laureion.”

Bulnes finished his last onion. At
least now he’d stink like all the others.
“What do we do next?” he asked.

“Well, us modern men got to stick
together, see? I thought maybe I’d get
next to some guy who knows what it’s
all about. And how can we get the hell
out of here?”

“Why?” said Flin. “Don’t you like
it?”

Diksen gave a sharp howl that caused
the other customers to look around.
“Like it! My God, you just try being a
slave and see how you like it!”

“Suppose you were a free man.
Would you like Athens then?”

“Hell no!” said Diksen. “You can
keep your pretty statues ; I’ll take flush
toilets and glass windows and electric
lights. There ain’t nothing in this
whole damn place we’d call necessary
for human comfort, even in the rich
citizens’ houses. Living here’s like —
like camping out without no modern
camping equipment, see ? Giv|e me good
old Yonkers! Look, professor, you gotta
get me back! You gotta, before I go
nuts!”

B ulnes said: “We’ll try. We too
have been wondering whether this
was the real ancient Greece or a modern
imitation.”

“How can you tell?” said Diksen. “I
never studied no history.”

“For one thing, assuming time-travel
is really involved, we don’t know
whether we’re back in the whole an-
cient world or only a part of it.”
“Come again, Mr. Bulnes?”

“How shall I explain it . . . Suppose
we started walking north from here;
we should pass through Boiotia and
Thessalia and so on. Now in the mod-
ern world there’s a force-wall around
Greece and adjacent areas, which the
Emp set up to keep people out while
he performed his experiments. Do you

follow me so far?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well then, in walking away from
here should we eventually come to the
force-wall again, the same one we pene-
trated on our way in, or should we just
find more and more of the ancient world
no matter how far we went?”

Diksen scratched'his head. “Geez, I
dunno. I couldn’t start on no hike like
that, on account of the epheboi watch
the borders to see no runaway slave
don’t sneak through.”

Flin asked : “How about a free man,
or somebody who could pass as one?”

“I suppose he could get through, ex-
cept they tell me the going’s rough when
you get out in the sticks. Bandits and
lions.”

Bulness said : “D’you know how far
this piece of the ancient world does
extend?”

“Lemme think. Most of us archers
comes from what would be the Balkans.
All the boj'^s got stories about what it
was like back in the old country before
the slavers snatched ’em, and they all
stack up. They was all farmers or
sheep-herders living in little one-room
shacks, and none of ’em ever heard of
the World Em.pire or longevity-treat-
ments or rockets to Mars. No, I don’t
thmk Bulgaria and Romania is inside
the force-wall, on account of my ticket
took me to Sofia and Bucuresti. So we
must be back in the real ancient world,
two-three thousand years before we was
born.”

“Not necessarily,” said Bulnes. “This
experiment has been going on for less
than a dozen years, yet we see middle-
aged and elderly men all around us, all
convinced they’re authentic Athenians.”

“Plow do you mean?” said Flin.

“If there’s some system of introduc-
ing a false memory into a man’s mind,
so he thinks he’s spent the fifty years
of his life in ancient Athens, the same
treatment could be given Mr. Diksen’s
fellow-archers, regardless of where they
actually came from. Is there a real
Sparta too, Mr. Diksen?”

29

THE GLORY THAT WAS

“Must be,” said Diksen. “Coupla
months ago they ordered us out on spe-
cial duty because a gang of ambassa-
dors came from there to dicker over
some treaty with the big-shot. Bunch
of sourpusses with long hair, and even
dirtier than the Athenians, which is
pretty damn dirty, see? Well, the
Athenians ain’t got no use for Spartans
on account of they got no brains, no

but that died down.”

“Then we must be before the Pelo-
ponnesian War. How old does Perikles
look?”

“Hard to say, on account of people
got old so much faster in the old days.
If he was a modern man I’d say he was
around a hundred or a hundred and
ten, but if he’s a real ancient Grick I
say sixty maybe.”

Next Month’s Science Fiction Headliners I

THE HELLFLOWER

A Novel of the Strange Power
that Enslaved the IVomen of Earth

By GEORGE O. SMITH

and

THE GNOME’S GNEISS

Man Meets Myth in a Riotous Novelet

By KENDELL FOSTER CROSSEN

manners, and no art, so the big-shot
ordered us to escort these ambassadors
in case sonte wise guy heaves a rock
at ’em. But everything went off okay
and the big-shot got his treaty.”

“Who,” said Bulnes, “is the big-
shot?”

“The boss; the general; the head
strategos. You know, Perikles.”

F LIN nudged Bulnes. “Oho ... now
we’re getting our period narrowed
down. There isn’t any war with Sparta
right now?”

“No. There was some talk about it.

“When does that date us, Bil?” asked
Bulnes.

“In the 430’s — perhaps as close as
435 to 432 B. C. The Peloponnesian
War should be just about ready to break
out.”

“Geez,” said Diksen, “you mean we
got a damn war on our hands too?”

“If history follows the same course
it did the first time. That was the war
that ruined Classical Greece. Dash it,
if I’d known what I was getting into
I’d have brought a copy of Thucydides.”

“How ja know this ain’t the first
time, Mr. Flin?”

30

STARTLING STORIES

Bulnes said : “That, my dear friends,
is what we’re trying to find out. Could
we check by geography?”

“How?” inquired Flin.

“Let’s say by changes in the coast-
line, or the degree of erosion of the
hills.”

“I don’t see how. We have no very
exact information on the state of such
matters in Classical times, and even if
we did we have no precise maps or other
data to guide us. But — how about ani-
mal life? Mr. Diksen said something
about lions, and there haven’t been any
wild lions in Europe since Classical
times.”

Bulnes said: “That wouldn’t do
either. Vasil could stock the country
with lions from some African game-
preserve. How about language. Do the
pronunciation and syntax of these
Greeks match those of the real ancient
ones?”

Flin spread his hands. “How can I
tell? Nobody made phonographic re-
cordings of the speech of the time of
Perikles, so we have to guess at their
pronunciation, more or less. It sounds
all right to me, but — ”

“I got an idea!” said Diksen. “I
once read in the paper about how the
position of the stars keeps changing, so
after a coupla thousand years the Big
Dipper’ll look like a frying-pan.”

“That’s it!” exclaimed Flin. “You
know astronomy from your navigating
experience, Knut; how about it?”

“Won’t do,” said Bulnes. “The change
wouldn’t be enough to settle the ques-
tion. But you do give me an idea.”

“What?” said the other two at once.

“The North Celestial Pole: the point
in the sky around which the stars turn.
It changes its position continually, mak-
ing a complete circle in — I forget ex-
actly — something like twenty-five thou-
sand years. If I could find an astron-
omer with some simple instruments, I
could determine whether the Pole is
now near Alpha Ursae Minoris or
Alpha Draconis or what. Who’s an
astronomer, Bil?”

“Oh, dear me,” said Flin. “I’m sup-
posed to be a Greek scholar and all that
rot, but without my reference books I
don’t know the ruddy subject as well
as I thought. Anaxagoras might still
be alive, and let’s see — there was some
other chap trying to reform the calen-
dar; can’t think of his name. Not
Myron, that’s the sculptor, but some-
thing like that. Could you look into it,
Mr. Diksen?”

“You want I should find an astron-
omer with a name something like
Myron, huh?”

“That’s it.”

“Meanwhile, my dear friends,” said
Bulnes, “there’s the little matter of
making our livings, because this Athe-
nian silver won’t last forever.”

“In the stories,” said Flin, “the chap-
pie who’s tossed back in time makes his
fortune by teaching the natives to add
or by inventing the airplane.”

"I wouldn’t try that,” said Diksen.
“These Gricks ain’t got no idear of the
usefulness of machinery so long as they
got a lot of poor shmos to work as
slaves. When my beat was on the
Akropolis I thought I’d save ’em trou-
ble and get in with the right guys by
suggesting wheelbarrows to haul their
loads. What thanks do I get? ‘Bar-
barian, you keep your damn nose out
of what don’t concern you. We Gricks
is the only people can think, and we
don’t need no advice from no low-down
slave. Now get going.’ Boy, I coulda
wrapped my bow around that guy’s
neck. Big-shot architect, name of
Iktinos.”

“We seem to have a complete cast of
characters in any event,” said Flin.
“D’you know Aspasia?”

“Yeah, sure; that is, I know who she
is.”

“Sokrates?”

“The funny-looking bald guy, always
picking arguments in the Agora?
Yeah.”

“Kleon the Tanner?”

“Maybe I heard of him. Not sure.”

“Pheidias?”

THE GLORY

“Nope.”

After Flin had gone through several
more names (most of which Diksen did
not know) Bulnes said : “The question of
making a living remains unsettled, but I
think Mr. Diksen is right, that we should
get nowhere trying to invent ourselves
into affluence. I certainly couldn’t invent
the airplane.”

“I don’t think it’s important,” said
Flin. “If I find Thalia I’ll jolly wtell
set out for the nearest frontier and take
my chances on getting through.”

Bulnes noted that Flin showed no con-
cern for the fate of his companion.
Swallowing his irritation Bulnes re-
plied: “Until we get some personal
security I don’t see how we can hunt
effectively for your wife, even assum-
ing she’s in this time-stream or what-
ever you call it. Don’t they keep the
women shut up in harems here?”

“Yeah, they do,” said Diksen. “Like
they used to do in them oriental coun-
tries.”

“What’s your suggestion, then?” said
Flin.

Bulnes said:

“If need be, we shouldn’t be afraid of
manual labor.”

“A dashed poor prospect, Knut. Slave
competition would keep wages down to
the starvation level. However, if you
become reasonably fluent in Classical
Greek, why shouldn’t we set up as
sophists?”

“You mean those guys that lecture?”
said Diksen.

“Absolutely. They -were big business
at the time, and were laying the foun-
dations for higher education as we know
it. We could give the people the Coper-
nican system — ”

“It seems to me,” said Bulnes, “they
used to feed hemlock poison to sophists
who taught radical new ideas.”

“Oh, we shall have to be careful.”

“I think perhaps you’ve hit it,” said
Bulnes. “Mr. Diksen, how would it be
if we hid out here a few days while our
beards grow and we practice our Greek?

THAT WAS 31

Meanwhile you can hunt up this astron-
omer fellow.”

“Sure. This guy here’s Kallingos,
and for a Grick innkeeper he’s almost
honest. I’ll drop back down in about
a week. If you want to look me up be-
fore then, come to the barracks on the
Areopagos when I’m off duty.” Diksen
yawned. “Got to catch up on my sleep.
So long!”

VI

M5uLNES was bored stiff; language
was not one of his strong points, and
Flin was not the best of teachers.

“. . . in the indicative mood,” said
Flin implacably, “the secondary tenses
are augm.ented ...”

Flin broke off as Bulnes grasped his
wrist, saying : “Did you see that tough-
looking party talking to our host?”

“Yes. He’s gone out now.”

“I didn’t like the look he gave us.”

Bulnes shifted to his rudimentary
Classical Greek. He had found that by
throwing in a word of Modern Greek
when he could not think of the Classical
form he could sometimes make himself
understood. “0 Kallingos!”

“You called?”

“Mine dear fellow, shall you not —
ah — share cup of you — uh — excellent
wine at us?”

“What did you say?”

Bulnes repeated the offer with even
greater care.

“Nai," said the innkeeper, wagging
his head and confusing Bulnes until the
latter remembered that this meant
“yes.” “0 Bouieus, you are as polite
as a Mede, though not so stupid. Boy!
Another cup. You should not, however,
call this Attic belly wash ‘excellent.’ If
I could sell you a jar of my Lesbian . . .”

“What’s he saying?” Bulnes asked
Flin, who translated.

Bulnes gathered his mental forces
and replied: “Me fear not; no got
enough money. Whom — uh— who am
the man — er — what’s the word, Bil?”

“The man with whom you were

32 STARTLING STORIES

speaking,” said Flin.

“Not the kind of man,” said Kallin-
gos, “you like to talk about.”

“What’s that, Bil ? . . . Who this man,
please?”

Kallingos lowered his voice. “Phaleas
the son of Kniphon.”

Bullies and Flin exchanged glances
of incomprehension. The latter said :
“Didn’t Diksen say something about
Phaleas’s gang?”

“Could be he.” Bulnes turned to
Kallingos. “Are him — er — ah — uh— ”

“The noted criminal,” put in Flin.

Kallingos looked over his shoulder.
“He is. He says two members of his
band were slain four nights ago by a
pair of barbarians, and he is now look-
ing for these killers to revenge himself.
They were huge powerful men in some
hideous Scythian or Persian costume.
Some of the band were enjoying a game
of knucklebones when these giants
sprang out of the dark, stabbed two to
death, and would have done in the rest
had they not run away. That was the
same night that the mysterious ship ap-
peared in Zea Harbor.”

“What mysterious ship?”

“Have you not heard? The state gal-
ley Paralos was caught by the storm on
her way back from Epidauros and rode
it out behind Salamis. When the wind
fell she made a run for home, even
though night had fallen, and was feel-
ing her way into Zea when she struck
a strange ship that had taken her usual
anchorage. The ship sank near the
wharves, and can be dimly seen lying
on the bottom even now, with sails of
strange cut mounted all awry. There
is some talk of sending divers down to
fasten ropes to the hull.”

“To raise she?” said Bulnes, conceal-
ing his eagerness.

“Zeus, no ! What use have we for an
outlandish rig like that ? They will tow
her into deeper water where she will
not interfere with navigation. But now
all the barber-shops buzz with specula-
tion as to whether there might not be
a connection between these two events.”

“I see ... 0 friend Kallingos, I fear
we must leaves tomorrow.”

“I am sorry. Is there anything you
do not like?”

“No; it are that we am going at
Athens.”

“It is too bad you could not stay over
tomorrow,” said Kallingos. “It is the
day of the Dionysia.”

“What is being shown?” asked Bil
Flin.

“The Aias of Sophokles and two other
plays, at our own Dionysiac Theater.
As Euripides is not competing this
year, the Aias may win.”

“I say!” said Flin, in English. “I
shouldn’t care to miss — ”

“Shut up, my dear Wiyem,” said Bul-
nes, then, to Kallingos : “Will them play
be shown again anywhere?”

“Yes, at the regular Dionysia in
Athens.”

“We may see him then. Meanwhile,
could you recommend us to a innkeeper
in Athens as honest like you ?”

Kallingos made a gesture. “To be
frank, there is none in Attika so honest
as I. Wherever else you go you will
be deceived and robbed. If you ask for
your wine diluted with one part of
water, you will get it cut with two. How-
ever, you will not be too badly robbed
at the inn of Podokles, a few houses
east of the Agora.”

Bulnes thanked Kallingos and went
up to the dormitory, where Flin burst
out: “What d’you mean by making a
plan like that without consulting me?
The logical thing is to exhaust the
Peiraieus looking for Thalia before we
think of moving. We’ve got a good inn-
keeper — ”

“But this gang — ” said Bulnes gestur-
ing impatiently.

Flin, however, though usually timid
in the face of physical risk, had gone
into a pet of the unreasonable obstinacy
with which weak men sometimes try to
assert themselves. Bulnes let him run
down and then said: “I’m going to-
morrow, my dear fellow. You may do
as you like.”

33

THE GLORY THAT WAS

W HEN the eastern sky began to
lighten, . Bulnes groaned and forced
himself up. He and Flin munched their
sops and paid up; Flin said no more
about refusing to move to Athens, and
Bulnes refrained from taunting him.

Bulnes noted that Kallingos tried to
swindle them out of only two or three
oboloi — for an Attic innkeeper, he sup-
posed, comparative rectitude. Then, as
the sun gilded the brass helmet of
Athene Promachos on the Akropolis,
the two travellers gathered their hima-
tia about them and set out upon the
dusty road to Athens, Bulnes muttering
the paradigms of irregular verbs.

They pushed to northward through
the stirring seaport towards the gate
adjacent to the junction of the North
Long Wall and the Peiraic Wall. After
passing through the gate they came
upon the muddy Kephisos in full spring
spate, not yet shrunken with the sum-
mer drouth. The highway crossed the
river by a ford.

Bulnes sighed. “Here, my friend, it
seems we get wet.”

Flin gathered up his himation, growl-
ing: “Jolly unfortunate we didn’t land
in a later century when they’d have had
a bridge.”

They climbed out the far side and
trudged up the hard-beaten wagon-
track across the flat Attic plain. Most
of the plain was a waste of new grass
and wild-flowers, with a few stands of
wheat and clumps of gray-green olive-
trees in the hollows. Other roads, even
more rudimentary, joined theirs at in-
tervals. Along these roads, mostly to-
wards Athens, moved a traffic of vege-
tables, hides, firewood, and similar com-
modities. This traffic, sometimes on the
backs of donkeys and sometimes on
those of men, thickened as they neared
the city.

After more than an hour the road
confusingly began to fork and rejoin
itself as they neared the walls of
Athens. On a flat space in front of the
wall a group of men with shields,
spears, and crested helmets marched

back and forth.

Stopping to draw breath and Watch,
Bulnes remarked : “They don’t look
much like Greek gods, do they?”

They did not, for the Athenian mili-
tiamen came in the usual range of hu-
man sizes and shapes, tall and short,
fat and thin. Like the Greeks of Bul-
nes’s own time they were nearly all
brunets, tending towards a stocky build
with broad heads and big Armenoid
noses.

Flin sighed. “I confess I find them
something of a disappointment.”

They followed the crowd through the
nearest gate, a complex structure evi-
dently intended as a practical defense,
for it included two sets of doors with
a passage between them overlooked by
galleries. A little group of Scythian
archers watched the traffic and straight-
ened out tangles.

I NSIDE, a street about five meters
wide led in the direction of the Akro-
polis. The city itself, however, proved
far from impressive: a huddle of one-
storey mud-brick buildings with the
same blank windowless outer walls that
Bulnes had noticed in the Peiraieus.
Here, moreover, instead of being laid
out in a rectangular grid, the houses
were placed every which way. The
streets were nothing but crooked little
alleys winding among the houses, often
barely wide enough to let two pedes-
trians pass, with no pavements any-
where. The stench was worse than at
the seaport, and out of this noisome
confusion rose the Akropolis, crowned
with marble and bronze, like a tiara on
a garbage-heap.

Bulnes let his companion lead the
way. Presently the street opened out
into the Agora, like that of the Pei-
raieus but bigger. It proved to be an
open space in name only, for in addi-
tion to the statues, monuments, and
plane-trees that dotted it, it was
crammed with tradesmen’s kiosks.

The space left among these structures
was crowded with Athenians, all reek-

34

STARTLING STORIES

ing of garlic, waving their hands, shout-
ing, laughing, haggling, arguing, and
shaking fists in each other’s faces. Many
wore violets in their hair — “In honor
of the Dionysia,” Flin explained. The
morning sun shone on bald heads, dis-
eased skins, and beggars in all stages
of human infirmity.

Flin pushed sunward through the
crowd ; Buhies, towering over the short
Greeks, strolled after him, wishing he
had pants pockets to thrust his hands
into. Flin kept glancing about.

“Looking for somebody?” asked Bul-
nes.

“My wife, of course. And I thought
we might catch sight of Sokrates or Pro-
dikos.”

“My dear fellow! We don’t even know
yet if it’s the real Sokrates or a modern
imitation, and in any case I doubt if you
could recognize him.” Bulnes turned
and spoke to a passing Athenian: “To
pandokeion Podoklou?”

“I do not know,” said the man, and
went his way.

Another half-hour’s search and more
questions brought them to their goal in
the Limoupedion district. Podokles
proved to be a burly fellow with part of
his nose missing from a sword-cut, and a
suspicious air, who said: “Foreigners,
eh? Where are you from?”

Bulnes had expected Flin to carry the
burden of negotiations, but the teacher
was lost in the contemplation of the de-
sign on a jar. This design showed a
horse-tailed satyr pursuing a group of
nymphs with intentions which the artist
had made all too plain.

Accordingly Bulnes told Podokles :
“Tartessos. I be Boules and him Philon.”

“Where is that?”

“In far West. Kallingos at Peiraieus
referred us to you. We stayed with he.”

“Then you might be- all right,” said
Podokles dubiously.

Bulnes handed Podokles the bag con-
taining their modern clothes (recovered
from the arsenal) and their few other
possessions, and asked: “When are
lunch?”

“Name of the dog, you fellows get
hungry early! If you want anything
prepared, go buy it and bring it to my
cook.”

Bulnes said to Flin: “I can’t get used
to beginning the day at dawn. Let’s look
up Diksen.”

They went out and trudged through
the filth towards the Hill of Ares, look-
ing around to be sure of finding their
way back.

VII

M^OY diksen, alias Pardokas, came
out of the barracks rubbing the sleep
out of his eyes. “Geez, I didn’t expect
to see you two for several days yet!”

Bulnes told him of the activities of
Phaleas the gangster.

“Uh-huh,” said Diksen. “I’d like to
pin something on that ganef, but I think
he’s bought protection from one of the
big-shots. Can you make with the
Grick, now?”

“Enough to manage. Have you found
our astronomer?”

“Yeah, just yesterday. Old geezer,
name of Meton, lives just off the Agora.”

“Meton!” said Flin. “By jove, I re-
member now: He’s the chap who burned
— I mean he will burn his house down
in — umm — fifteen or twenty years so
that the Assembly will order his son to
stay home from the Sicilian expedition
to take care of him.”

Bulnes looked questioningly at Flin.
“How do we get access to this Meton ?”

“That would take a bit of doing, you
know. An Athenian’s home is his castle.”

Bulnes asked Diksen: “Does Meton
ever go to the Agora?”

“Naw; just sits around diddling with
his calendars and things.”

Bulnes said: “I suppose, my dear
friends, we shall have to find someone
who can tender the proper introduc-
tions.”

“I wish you luck,” said Diksen, “but
I can’t help you none. An introduction
from a slave wouldn’t be no recommen-
dation.”

THE GLORY

Bulnes said: “At least you could tell
us where to find Sokrates in the Agora.”

“I guess he mostly hangs out around
the Basileios' Stoa. Or one of them
places,” Diksen added vaguely.

B ulnes and Flln left the pseudo-
Scythian and walked back down the
slope of the Areopagos. Flin, wistfully
eyeing the Akropolis a mere hundred
meters away over his shoulder, said:
“You don’t suppose we could take an
hour off for a spot of sight-seeing?”
“No, my dear Bil, I don’t.”

“We can at least take this street that
runs down to the south end of the
Agora. See those holes in the cliff?”
“Yes.”

“They’re the caves of Pan and Apollo.
There are supposed to be secret stairs
or passages leading from them up to the
Akrolopis . . . and there are the Long
Rocks; those are the statues of the
Tribal Heroes . . .”

Back at the Agora they soon located
the Royal Stoa among the shops and of-
fices along the west side of the plaza.
Inside the building a crowd of people
watched an argument being conducted
before a man who sat on a raised seat
and wore a purple himation and a dried-
up wreath on his head.

“That,” said Flip, “must be the King.”
“I thought this was a republic?”

“It is, but they’ve kept the kingship
as a sort of vestigial office. As I recall,
he’s a combination high-priest and do-
mestic-relations judge.”

“I see. Please start asking people for
Sokrates.”

“Dash it all, you know I hate speak-
ing to strangers! Why don’t you? You
need the practice.”

“Oh, all right; for you I will. But
kindly listen to their replies and be pre-
pared to translate. When they speak
fast I get lost.” Knut Bulnes turned
his best Greek on one of his immediate
neighbors: “Have you see Sokrates,
please ?”

Within a quarter-hour he had col-
lected a variety of replies: “What?”

THAT WAS 35

“No.” “I do not know the man.” “Do
you mean Sokrates the Carpenter?” “I
have never heard of him.” “What are
you saying?” “Not today.” “i do not
understand you.” “He and his ques-
tions ! When I catch that scoundrel . . .”
“I am a stranger too.” “No, and if you
find him, tell him Mnesiphilos wants his
five drachmai back.” “Who are your’
And finally: “You are looking in the
wrong place; he is usually to be found
in the Stoa Poikile.”

“Thank you,” said Bulnes, and turned
to Flin. “Where now?”

“I think the Painted Porch was — is —
across the Agora. And if you expect
to pass as an Athenian you’ll have to
drop those ceremonious manners.”

T hey pushed out into the noonday
glare, stopping at the Bread Market
long enough to buy a big loaf from a
truculent old woman for three coppers.
Though Bulnes hungrily eyed a sausage-
seller’s stock, Flin objected: “Probably
give you trichinosis. Anyway this
bread’s so full of garlic and things it has
all the vitamins we need.”

They won through the mob to the
Painted Porch, where Flin gabbled over
the murals : one of the Battle of Mara-
thon, one of the Sack of Troy, one of
Theseus fighting the Amazons, and one
of some other battle. Bulnes resumed
the questioning of passersby about Sok-
rates until Flin plucked at his cloak,
saying: “Over there. Looks like a soph-
ist with his pupils.”

A dignified-looking graybeard was
sitting on a bench and lecturing three
younger men. Bulnes went up behind
the hearers and held up his hand until
the lecturer interrupted himself :

“Yes? You wish something?”
“Thousand pardons, sir, but have you
see Sokrates?”

One of the youths said something
nasty about barbarians who sought wis-
dom before they could even speak Greek,
and the other two laughed. However,
the graybeard cut through the ribaldry :
“No, my good man, for he is not in

36 STARTLING STORIES

the city of Athens today.”

, “Indeed?”

“In fact the fellow has gone off on
a picnic to revel with the nymphs and
satyrs on Mount Hymettos. You may
find him back here tomorrow . . . where
was I? Ah, yes, whereas the Philolaos
has been asserting the world to be a
sphere, this speculation is shown to be
absurd and untenable by . .

“Now can we visit the Akropolis,
Knut? Can we?” said Flin.

“Very well, my dear comrade.”

T hey. walked back to the south end
of the Agora and thence to the path
that wound up the west end of the
Akropolis, through the Propylaia or en-
trance, and out at last on to the fiat top
of the great ship-shaped hill. With each
step Flin’s condition became more
ecstatic until he broke into a run, dash-
ing from statue to statue as if his life
depended upon his seeing everything at
once. He babbled happily:

“That’s the great Athene Promachos,
Knut, though the name only goes
back ... a Pheidias original! Think of
it!”

He put out a finger and delicately
touched the brazen foot of the ten-meter
colossus, then moved on to where a
group of workmen were planting a life-
sized statue of Athene on its pedestal,
Vvith ropes and grunts.

“ . . . and this must be Myron’s group
of Athene and Marsyas, only Marsyas
isn’t mounted yet. Excuse me,” he said
to an elderly man directing operations,
“but are you Myron?”

“Why yes,” said the man.

Flin shut his eyes and squeezed his
hands together. “I’ve seen Myron! I’ve
seen Myron! Isn’t it the most dashed
v/onderful thing you ever saw, Knut?
Come on, there’s the Parthenon!”

And off he galloped, sandals flapping.
“No, the entrance is around the far
end.”

“Why,” asked Bulnes, “should they
put the entrance at the east end when
you come up on to the Akropolis from

the West? Does that make sense?”

“Some religious reason, or perhaps
they wanted the rising sun to light the
statue inside for dawn ceremonies. Isn’t
it beautiful?”

Bulnes said: “I must say the Akrop-
olis looks different from what I ex-
pected. All those bright colors give the
effect of one of the gaudier American
amusement-parks.”

T hree hours later they slouched into
the inn of Podokles. Bulnes said:
“I’ve got museum feet, and I think a
nice big mug of wine — thank you, my
dear Podokles. Wiyem, if you find your-
self broke in Athens, you can make a
living as a tourist-guide. But don’t tr>'
to show everything at once.”

“I suppose I did let my enthusiasm
run away with me,” said Flin humbly.
He made a face at his wine. “Hang it
all, if I could only have a dish of tea!”
“Wrong centuiy.”

“Uh-huh. I admit the sheer physical
discomfort of this environment does
take some of the bloom off.”

“Personally,” said Bulnes, “I shall be
satisfied hereafter to view ancient
Greece in the form of museum exhibits.
Podokles, my friend, give us of your wis-
dom. How is Periklean regime doing?”

The innkeeper, thawing to Bulnes’s
persistent friendliness, planted his
broad bottom on the bench. “Not too
well.”

“How so?”

“Everybody expected war with Sparta
and was full of enthusiasm. Then the
Perikles suddenly made a treaty with
the Spartans, compromised with the
Corinthians, and offered the Potidaians
synaecism.”

“Offered them what?”

“Common citizenship with Athens. A
lot of the commercial people are saying :
why go to all the trouble of building
up an empire if we are to give its be-
nefits away to foreigners ? What do you
think?”

Bulnes smiled. “I fear as foreigners

37

THE GLORY THAT WAS

my friend and I is prejudice.”

“What?”

“Never mind. What will come of
these?”

“I do not know. I fear that if the
Perikles continues to follow a soft life
in foreign affairs, the radical factions
will join with the extreme conservatives
to gain control of the Assembly. I, now,
am for moderation, wherefore I have
always favored the Perikles.”

“So that’s how it was!” said Flin.

“We don’t know yet,” said Bulnes,
and to Podokles: “How do the radicals
propose to attack Perikles ?”

“Thei’e is a rumor — Polites Eurybo-
tou was repeating it here the other
night — that Diopithes and Kleon and
those fellows were going after his
friends, since he himself is too popular.
They think they have something on
some of them.”

Flin exclaimed: “Then it is real! It
must be! Because that’s just what hap-
pened! We’ve got to warn Perikles
they’re after Pheidias and Anaxagoras
and Aspasia!”

“Take it easy, my dear fellow,” said
Bulnes. “What shall they do to Peri-
kles’ friends ?”

“Indictments,” said Podokles. “For
instance, the Pheidias handled a lot of
gold in his work on the New Hekatom-
pedon of Athene Polias — ”

“The which?”

Flin interjected: “What you’d call the
Parthenon. Go on, Podokles.”

“As I was saying, he handled much
gold in doing the work, and it would
be surprising if some had not stuck to
his fingers . . .”

Later Flin told Bulnes : “This waiting
is driving me mad ! Here we’re running
out of money with no more in sight ; my
wife is God know's where ; the plot
against Perikles is gathering ; and we sit
waiting for Sokrates.”

Bulnes shrugged. “You can’t rush
things like that without ruining them.
And what makes you so sure we want
to save Perikles ?”

“Don’t you see? The Peloponnesian

War ruined Hellenic culture — ”

“I thought Aristotle and a lot of
other important thinkers came after
this war?”

“They did, but — oh, it’s too compli-
cated to explain. Political morality had
broken down and so on. Evidently Per-
ikles tried to stave off the war, but
the rabble-rousers forced his hand by
attacking his associates, so he dropped
his efforts to conciliate Sparta and let
the war break out to unite the people
behind him. Now if we could only — ”

“My dear friend, we don’t even know
yet if this be the genuine Perikles.
Even assuming we’re back in ancient
times, what should we accomplish? Per-
haps we should find ourselves unable to
change anything, since an act once done
can hardly be undone. Or if we did
change events we should alter all sub-
sequent history and destroy ourselves
in the process.”

“Nonsense! We haven’t disappeared
yet. We might start history off on an-
■ other tack — ”

“So men would perfect the solar bomb
in the third century instead of the twen-
tieth, and having no notion of a world
society would merrily blow each other
off the face of the globe ? Let’s wait till
we have all the facts.”

VIII

^^^EXT morning found them scouring
the Agora until, several hours after
sunrise, a disturbance around the Paint-
ed Porch drew their attention. There
stood a new arrival among the talkers
and loafers : a short bald potbellied snub-
nosed m.an of about forty, barefoot,
wearing nothing but a ragged himation,
M^hom it did not need the greetings of
his acquaintances to identify as Sokra-
tes. He looked remarkably, thought
Bulnes, like the satyr on the vase-paint-
ing at the inn of Podokles.

The dignified graybeard of the previ-
ous day was there too, saying: “Rejoice,
0 Sokrates !” with the rest.

“Rejoice, O Protagoras,” said Sokra-

38 STARTLING STORIES

tes. “I heard you were in Athens and
hastened to see you. How long will you
be with us this time?”

“Perhaps a month. Have you seen
my young colleague Demokritos?”

“I do know him. Is he in Athens too ?”

“He set out before I did, and should
be here unless he has been lost at sea.”

“Well, we have not seen him here-
abouts,” said Sokrates.

Flin breathed: “That was Protagoras
we spoke to yesterday ! I never thought
we should run into anybody really
important, just like that!”

“Who the devil’s Protagoras?” asked
Bulnes.

“Such ignorance! He’s — oh, hush up
and listen!”

Sokrates continued: “Are you giving
courses, Protagoras ?”

“A brief one to pay my travelling ex-
penses.”

“How do you expect the purity of
philosophy to withstand the contamina-
tion of vulgar commercial transac-
tions ?”

“As to that, Sokrates, I am not aware
of any rule that philosophers have not
the same right to eat as other men.
Therefore I charge.”

“Therefore you consider your teach-
ings worth money?”

“Certainly,” replied Protagoras.

“But I rem.emlaer on jmur last visit,
when we argued whether viiTue could
be taught, you professed that your
teachings were priceless. If they are
priceless, you obviously cannot put a
price upon them.”

“Sokrates, you are an amusing rascal
and I am glad to see you, but I will be
ground to sausage and fed to Kerberos
before. I let you entrap me in one of
your quibbles again.”

“Do not be angry! 1 admit I am an
ignorant man in search of v/isdom, and
here you come, the godlike Protagoras,
all the way from windy Abdera to dis-
pense it, so naturally I make the most
of my oppor — ”

“Excuse me,” said Protagoras firmly,
with the expression of one determined

to get out of the pythonlike embrace of
the Sokratic dialectics. “I see a couple
of strangers who were asking for you
yesterday. Come forward, sirs, and
give your names.”

“Me?” said Bulnes, a little discon-
certed. “I am — uh — Bouleus of Tartes-
sos, and my friend am Philon of Tar-
tessos. Hearing you were — ah — wisest
man in Athens, Sokrates, we sought you
out to make selves better.”

S okrates smiled an embarrassed
grin. “No, no, somebody has been
filling you with lies. My only advantage
is that I know I am ignorant, whereas
the other simpletons do not.”

“Tartessos?” said Protagoras. “Is
that not in Spain, at the very rim of
the known world?”

“It is,” said Bulnes.

Protagoras continued : “I thought
that city was either destroyed by the
Carthaginians, or sunk beneath the sea
by an earthquake, back about the
Seventieth Olympiad. I have heard both
tales.”

Bulnes, whose knowledge of historical
geography was slight, turned to Flin.
The little Englishman stepped into the
breach; “True, Tartessos is not what it
was, but it has not been destroyed. It
has decayed because the silting up of the
Tartessis River has left it stranded
among great mud-flats, so that it is no
longer accessible to large ships.”

“I see,” said Protagoras. “Are the
stories of its former mineral wealth
true?”

- “Quite true. In fact we Tartessians
believe your poet Homeros based his
Scheria, the city of the Phaiakes in the
Odyssey, upon an acc'^unt of Tartessos.”

Protagoras smJled. “Evidently the
Tartessians are feeling their way to the
theory of ray colleague Prodikos of
Keos, that all myths are either person-
ifications of natural forces or exag-
gerated versions of the deeds of mortal
men.”

Bulnes said, “Gentlemen: I will with
you permission — ah — put up a puzzle

THE GLOKY

to you. Let us suppose the world are
inhabited by race of gods who powers
are far beyond our. They can fly to the
moon, talk to each other over thousands
of stadia, and light their dwellings with
lamp that require no oil.

“Let us suppose this gods can make
men complete not only in body but also
in mind, so that a man just made has
a memory stretching all the way back
to his non-existent childhood. And let
us suppose as an exp.eriment these god
set aside part of the earth called ‘Hellas’
and stock it with the present popula-
tion of those lands, all with the neces-
sary — er — pseudo-memories, and a com-
plete outfit of buildings, ship, and the
like. Now, let us suppose you are those
people, and experiment started five or
six years ago. How might you prove
otherwise ?”

“But,” objected Protagoras, “I have
a clear memory going back more years
than I like to think — certainly many
more than six.”

“I allowed for that. How could you
prove this not a false memory implanted
in you mind by the gods who made you
six years ago?”

“Ridiculous,” said a bystander.

Bulnes turned to the objector with
his blandest smile. “No doubt, my dear
fellow, but how would you prove?”

S OKRATES said: “What happens
when one of these newly made Hel-
lenes sets forth on a long journey, as
when a Greek city sends people to found
a colony in the Euxine Sea ? They would
come to the bounds of this Hellas and
enter the country of the gods, so dis-
covering themselves to be mere pets,
like carp in a fish-pond.”

Bulnes said: “We shall suppose the
gods put the traveller to sleep as he
nears boundary, and then awaken him at
an appropriate time and set him on the
route back to Hellas, with a set of false
memories of him journey through bar-
barous lands.”

“You mean,” said Protagoras, “that
such places as Egypt and Spain do not

THAT WAS

exist, save as images implanted in our
minds by these crafty gods of yours?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. For all you
know my friend and I might be gods
come to see how the experiment are
going. Except, of course, if we were we
would not let you in on the secret so
careless.”

“I see,” said Protagoras. “Very in-
genious. In fact it agrees with what I
have been preaching for years, that as
all our knowledge comes through our
fallible senses, reality may be vastly dif-
ferent from what it seems because of
the distortions of our perceiving-appa-
ratus.”

Sokrates said : “I should agree, except
that you do not allow for the direct in-
spiration of the soul by the divine
powers. Otherwise, it is as if we were
prisoners sitting at the entrance to a
cave, facing the far wail, with our heads
so shackled that we could not move, and
trying to make out what is happening
in the world outside by the shadows
thrown on the cave wall and the sounds
of traffic and conversation behind us.”

“A striking example, Sokrates,” said
Protagoras. "And now I must get back
to my pupils. I shall see you again. Re-
joice!”

Sokrates said to Bulnes: “Tartessos
does produce -acute reasoners, especially
for a barbaric land. What do Tartes-
sians hold to be the ultimate good?”

Bulnes, foreseeing an endless argu-
ment, said: “That depends on the men:
Some seeking the satisfaction of their
own appetites, some the good of their
fellows, and some the advancement of
knowledges. And for us, we are so ig-
norant as you say yourself to be, and
hope you will enlighten us. What does
you think?”

“Oh, I am without doubt the most
ignorant man in all Hellas! You should
have asked the Protagoras ; he knows all
the answers, and will gladly convey
them to you at fifty drachma! a day.
However, now that you have asked me,
I will try to demonstrate the identity of
the good, the true, and the beautiful — ”

40 STARTLING STORIES

‘‘One moment, 0 Sokrates!” said Bul-
nes in some alarm. “Before you begin,
do you know Meton the astronomer?”

“Why yes, I know him, and Anaxa-
goras and Archelaos and all that crew.
When I was interested in such matters
I consorted with them regularly, before
I decided upon the futility of all material
science. The true astronomer, I now
maintain, should have no need to spend
his nights on his roof gazing at the
stars, catching a cold in his head and a
crick in his neck; he should derive the
laws of the universe by pure logic. For
reason is the only infallible sense pos-
sessed by man; the others are fallible
and delusive, and when applied to the
vulgar and imperfect things of this ma-
terial world — ”

“True,” interrupted Bulnes, “but we
wondered if — that is, you could do us
a great favor by introducing us to
Meton. As foreigners, you know, we
cannot walk up to him front door and — ”
“What do you want to know that fel-
low for? All his star-gazing and cal-
endar-calculating have not made one
wife more faithful or one politician more
honest. Such prying into divine secrets
never meant for mortals to know is
sheer insanity. Now, as I was saying — ”
“Because,” persisted Bulnes, “while
your vdsdom is without doubt of a more
fundamental and significant kind, the
city of Tartessos, when he sent us forth,
told us to look him up to ask him some
questions about geography and such
matters.”

Flin added: “As I understand it, to
have legal protection while here we
must enrol with the Polemarchos as
registered metics and get some citizen
to stand as our patron. Now, if you —
ahem — could see your way—”

“Nothing easier,” said Sokrates. “But
as I was saying about the good, nothing
is simply good in relation to nothing;
everything must be good for something,
or the reverse, and thus a thing can be
both good and bad, depending upon . . .”

Not daring to interrupt again, Bulnes
gritted his teeth to listen.

Six hours later Sokrates glanced at
the lowering sun. “By the Dog of
Egypt! I have talked the day through
without stopping even to eat. You poor
fellows must be starved! Boy!”

A young man sitting on the ground
with his back to a pillar and dozing, now
got up and wrapped himself in a hima-
tion even more ragged than that of Sok-
rates. Bulnes realized with a slight
shock that this must be Sokrates’s per-
sonal slave; he had not thought of the
philosopher as a slave-owner.

Sokrates said : “Two days ago I spent
my last obolos for a meal for Dromon
and myself , and hence must depend upon
my friends until my next rents come
in.”

“Oh!” said Bulnes. “You must allow
us! While fare at our inn are not that
of Persian kings . . .”

“A kind offer,” said Sokrates, “but I
have a better idea : Whom did you wish
to meet? Meton? Let us therefore
sponge on him for dinner!”

And the philosopher set off at a pace
that made the short Flin pant, and
forced even Bulnes to stretch his long
legs.

IX

^^OKRATES banged the door of Me-
ton’s house with his stick and roared:
“Boy! Boy!”

When the spy-hole oi^ened and a
wrinkled face appeared, the philosopher
added: “Tell your master the greatest
dunce in Athens is here with two other
ninnies from far countries!”

The hole closed, and after a while
opened again to disclose a man older
than Sokrates but 'younger than Prota-
goras : a thin man with a sharp glitter-
ing-eyed expression.

“0 Sokrates!” said the man. “I have
not seen you since the banquet at the
house of Alkamenes last year, when you
got drunk and danced the kordax!”

“I am never drunk!” retorted Sokra-
tes. “Besides, you were asleep under
your couch at the time and could not

THE ULOKY

see what I was dancing.”

“And who are these?” said Meton.

“My new acquaintances from far Tar-
tessos. You will find them quite gentle-
manly even though they be not Hellenes,
let alone Athenians.” Sokrates intro-
duced them, adding: “They say they
have an astronomical problem for you.”

“Come in, come in, do not stand there
like so many herms,” said Meton. He
turned and shouted back over his shoul-
der: “E! You women, out of there!”

There was a twitter of female voices
and a scrambling sound. Bulnes started
to follow Sokrates through the vestibule,
but was stopped by Meton, who said in
a marked manner :

“Are you not going to leave your
shoes?”

“I is sorry,” said Bulnes, and doffed
his sandals before following Meton into
the open court at the end of the passage.

The court was a bare rectangle of
beaten earth with an altar in the middle,
from which a thread of incense-smoke
arose. The barren patch was surround-
ed by wooden columns holding up the
inner edge of the roof, and the columns
in turn were encompassed by a lot of
dark little curtained cells opening on to
the court. In the courtyard stood a
table on which was spread a mass of
sheets of papj^rus held down by a stone
for a paperweight. In one corner a very
old man sat at a smaller table, working
on some similar sheets.

“Rejoice, Anaxagoras!” Sokrates
called across the court to the oldster,
who replied in kind.

“What is your problem, men of Tar-
tessos?” asked Meton.

Bulnes had been composing sentences
in anticipation of this question. He said:
“You — uh — know the theory, Meton,
that the earth is' round like a ball?”

“Yes, of course,” said Meton. “The
silly Pythagoreans have been making
that claim for several years, and I begin
to think they have hit upon the right
answer by the wrong method. It would
explain many things, such as the shape
of the earth’s shadow during eclipses of

XHAT WAS 41

the moon.”

Sokrates said: “My good Meton, this
materialistic so-called science of yours
is bankrupt and you might as well admit
it. You and your colleagues have gazed
at the stars and plucked at lyre-strings
and tried to weigh smoke in a bag, and
you have come to a dead end. The ma-
terial senses alone can do no more for
you. If you would seek divine aid in
bettering your character, now — ”

“Later, later,” said Meton. “Let us
finish with these strangers first. What
about the roundness of the earth?”

B ulnes said: “We Tartessians be-
lieve if we can get measurement of
height of the North Celestial Pole from
the horizon in enough places, we shall be
materials for a complete — uh — complete
—what’s the word, Bil?”

“Map.”

“A complete map of the world.”
“Papai! Now that is an idea.” said
Meton, making gestures with his fin-
gers. “The angle from the North Ce-
lestial Pole to the horizon will be the
same as the angle the observer stands
at from the equator toward the North
Pole, would it not? A neat point. 0
Anaxagoras !”

The old man looked up.

“Come here and take some notes.
These men have brought an interesting
theorem with them.”

Anaxagoras came over with a papyrus
sheet and wrote as Meton dictated.

“Are you really Anaxagoras of Kla-
zomenai?” asked Flin, eyes bugging.

“Indeed I am,” quavered the oldster.
“Do the Tartessians then know of the
poor old Anaxagoras, neglected of the
world and sunk to a pensioner of the
generous Meton?”

“Nonsense!” gruffed Meton. “He en-
joys feeling sorry for himself. That is
all for the present, old man. Well then,
Bouleus of Tartessos, what more do you
wish ?”

“We thought if you had instruments
at your house, you might let us make
observations of the position of the Pole

42 STARTLING STORIES

to find it height here at Athens.”

“Hm. That could be arranged. I tell
you: come back here this evening after
dinner and we will take a look from the
roof. You will stay, will you not, So-
krates?”

“I shall not need much urging,” said
Sokrates. “Good-bye for the present,
my foreign friends.”

Bulnes said to Flin in English :
“That’s what in America they call the
bum’s rush.” Then to Meton: “Many
thanks, my dear sir; it is an honor to
have meet you.”

“Nonsense: it is no honor at all. Be
back after dark, but do not keep me up
all night waiting — what is it, Anaxa-
goras ?”

The oldster had been plucking at
Meton’s chiton. Now he muttered into
Meton’s ear. After a whispered argu-
ment Meton said : “Anaxagoras asks me
to invite you to stay so he can question
you on the geography of Spain. He is
always after such details to improve
his world-map, you know. How about
it?”

Bulnes smiled broadly. “You are
much too kind — ”

“Of course if you have an engage-
ment — ” said Meton hopefully.

“ — but my colleague and I would not
miss an hour in such learned company
for anythings. We accept with heartfelt
thanks.”

Meton, looking none too pleased,
turned to shout to a slave to set extra
places. Anaxagoras laid a bony hand
on the arms of Flin and Bulnes, saying:
“If you will step into my room, my dear
friends . . .”

The room turned out to be one of the
airless, lightless cubicles opening on to
the court. Anaxagoras thrust the cur-
tain aside and ushered them in.

I NSIDE, Bulnes saw, leaning against
one wall, a huge rectangular sheet of
papyrus in a wooden frame. On it’ was
drawn a world map with Greece in the
center of a great circular land-mass in
which the Mediterranean, Red, and Cas-

pian Seas made indentations from dif-
ferent directions. While Greece was
drawn with fair accuracy, the other
parts became less and less recognizable
as one went outward from the center.
After- some puzzling, Bulnes made out
that the tapering horn on the left ex-
tremity of Europe w^as supposed to rep-
resent the Iberian Peninsula.

He said: “With all due modesty, my
dear Anaxagoras, I thinks I can improve
on that. Have you something to draw
with?”

Anaxagoras produced a piece of char-
coal from the litter and said : “Draw on
the wall, if you will.”

Bulnes was just finishing the British
Isles when he heard their host’s call.
Meton beckoned them towards the door
at the farther end of the court. Through
this door they entered a large and barely
furnished room with a floor of stone.
In one far corner stood another altar;
in the other, a great pile of manuscripts,
work-sheets, drawung-instruments, and
the like, which litter looked as though
it had been hastily pushed aside to make
room for the couches which the slaves
were now setting out.

Bulnes sighed as he resigned himself
to a discomfort he had so far escaped:
that of eating gentleman-style, reclining
on a sofa.

In briefing him on Athenian customs
and manners, Flin had dilated on the
glories of the Athenian dinner-party
with its contests of wit and song and
its other formidable qualities. This one,
however, proved much simpler. Meton
seemed to have simply stretched his
originally modest meal of fish, bread,
and assorted greens still further. He
occupied the head couch with Sokrates,
and instead of discussing questions of
ponderous philosophic import they chat-
tered about sports and the high cost of
living and the doings of their mutual
acquaintances while a pet marten
climbed over them.

At the other side Flin, sprawled with
Anaxagoras, argued the question of
whether the moon was inhabited, leav-

THE GLORY THAT WAS

43

ing Bulnes to munch his celery in soli-
tary silence. Bulnes did so except when
Anaxagoras became involved in an argu-
ment with a slave whom he accused of
serving him wine of a grade inferior
to that of the rest of the company. Then
Bulnes spoke across to Flin: “At last,
my dear Wiyem, I’ve found a race who
cook worse than the English!”

“Huh,” said Flin. “At least they don’t
smother everything with pepper the
way they do it in Spain.”

“What is that?” said Meton.

Flin answered the astronomer in the
latter’s language: “A thousand pardons,
my dear sir; we have be praising your
splendid cuisine.”

M eton snorted. “Nothing splendid
about it! It is the Corinthians and
barbarians who live for their bellies.”

“Precisely,” said Bulnes. “So health-
fully modest in quantity and rugged in
quality! None of your guests will ever
stuff self till he becomes useless ball of
fat.”

Sokrates added sententiously ; “Noth-
ing in excess. Let us eat to live, not live
to eat.”

Meton shot a sharp look at Bulnes,
then apparently decided to take the com-
ment at its face value.

“Oh, well,” he said, “if you put it that
way, I am glad you appreciate it. How-
ever, since you have set us a task this
evening, we will not waste time match-
ing verses from the Poet or tossing
dregs at a mark. As the stars will soon
be out, we shall have one more pull at
the wine, and then off to the roof.”
They reached the roof by a ladder. Bul-
nes was a little alarmed to see Anaxa-
goras struggling up behind the rest, but
the ancient bag of bones reached the
top without visible difficulty.

The roof itself was flat and made of
some composition like adobe. From here
Bulnes could appreciate the figure-eight
plan of the house, with its two open in-
terior courts and blank outer wall. He
walked over to the corner where stood
a group of primitive astronomical in-

struments : sighting-devices more or less
like the forestaffs and astrolabes of later
centuries, with angles marked off in
simple fractions of a circle.

Meton adjusted one of the instru-
ments. “Come here, Bouleus,” he said.
“Look along these sights. Now, do you
see that star, the tip of the tail of the
Little Bear? And that one, the nearest
one to it in the constellation Cepheus?
Move your pointer about one-fifth from
the first star to the second, and you will
be very close to the point you seek. It
is unfortunate that there is no bright
star near the spot — ”

“Bil!” cried Bulnes in English. “It’s
still in its normal position!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean we’re still in the twenty-
seventh century. Anno Domini! If we
were back in the fifth B. C. it would be
— let’s see- — The other side of Alpha
Ursae Minoris, over towards Alpha Dra-
conis. If I had a good star-map I could
show you exactly — ”

“No!” cried Flin.

“Look at it yourself.”

“Oh, blast it, you know I’m ignorant
about such matters. But this can’t all
be a fake. It’s too good!”

“There’s your evidence. At least it
makes finding Thalia a bit more hope-
ful.”

X

THEY walked homeward with
Sokrates, Bulnes said: “Ahem — ah —
Sokrates, perhaps you can help us . .

“In what way?”

“Like yourself, we often find that
vulgar money-matters interfere with
the search for higher truths. To be
frank, the stipend with which our city
sent us forth is shrinking like the snows
in spring, and — uh — ”

“Gentlemen!” said Sokrates. “Were
I as rich as Kallias I should be glad to
help you, but as it is . . .”

“I did not mean that! We have con-
sidered honest methods of fattening our
purses before proceeding to our next

44 STARTLING STORIES

stop, and it strikes us that, since some
of our scientific ideas seem unknown
here, perhaps we could set ourself up as
professor like Protagoras . .

“Well?” said Sokrates in a sharper
tone.

“We thought you could advise us how
much to charge and where to round up
some pupils — ”

“I? I, who for years have been de-
ploring and ridiculing the prostitution
of philosophy by these same hucksters?
I help you to continue this debasement
of the divine faculties? My good men,
you have been misinformed — ”

“Excuse us, please,” said Bulnes. “Let
us consider the proposition as not hav-
ing been make.”

“Of course,” continued Sokrates, “not
being Athenians you could not be ex-
pected to view these matters according
to civilized standards of honor. I sug-
gest you consult Protagoras himself,
who is well qualified to advise you in
the liming of twigs to catch some of our
more credulous birds. And here our
paths diverge. Rejoice!”

Off he strode, his paunch bobbing be-
fore him.

“I’m afraid he’s sore at us,” said Bul-
nes. “But what else could I have done ?”

“Dash it all,” said Flin. “You shouldn’t
have gone at him hammer-and-tongs
like that. What shall we do now?”

Bulnes shrugged. “Follow his advice
and ask Protagoras, I suppose.”

P ROTAGORAS, when sought out next
day, proved no more satisfactory
than Sokrates. The sophist drew him-
self up to his full height (about that
of Flin) and said:

“My good men, you ask me to help
set you up in competition with myself,
and to divide with you the pupils I have
attracted — or, I should say, who have at
last recognized the worth of my teach-
ings after my many years of neglect?
And being, moreover, not even Hellenes,
but Barbarians whose Greek I can
barely understand? Are you mad? Be
off! I have no time for lunatics!”

Bulnes listened to the tirade with
eyebrows raised in an expression of
mild surprise. When it was over he
tossed the loose end of his himation over
his shoulder and said:

“Thank you, my dear Protagoras.
Even if you cannot fulfill our request,
you have give us free a valuable lessons
in the greatness of soul to be found in
Athens. Come, Philon.” And with a dig-
nity surpassing that of Protagoras he
turned his back and started off.

“Gentlemen!” said a soft voice.

A young man, who had been sitting
behind one of the pillars, now spoke to
Bulnes. He looked to be about thirty,
with a fuzzy young beard and a nervous
smile playing around his mouth.

“Something?” said Bulnes.

“Yes, if you — ah — if you really do
not mind,” said the young man. “I re-
alize of course that I have no right to
force myself upon you . . .”

“Come to the point, my dear sir,”
said Bulnes.

“Well — ah — if you will forgive me, I
overheard your exchange with Prota-
goras — not that I would say anything
against the great Protagoras — but — ah
— I do not know how to say it . . .”

Bulnes said: “Come, come, begin at
the beginning. There are no need to be
shy with us.”

“That is good of you, but what I am
trying to say is that if you are the Tar-
tessian philosophers, and are seriously
looking for pupils, I— ah — would you
consider m.e? I realize that you are men
of importance in your own land, but
then I have studied under Protagoras
and Leukippos, and have spent seven
years in Egypt, so you will not find me
utterly unworthy of your efforts.”

“Gladly,” said Bulnes, partly masking
his joy. “If you would care to come with
us back to our inn we will discuss terms
and hours.”

“Demokritos !” cried the voice of Pro-
tagoras behind them. “By Herakles,
where have you been? Nobody in
Athens has seen you. When did you get
here?”

THE GLORY

“Oh,” said the young man. “Truly I
am sorry if I have inconvenienced you,
O Protagoras, but I did not wish to
burst in on one of your invaluable lec-
tures.”

“But why have you not made your-
self known to Sokrates or Diogenes or
our other colleagues?”

Demoki'itos dug patterns in the dirt
with the toe of his sandal. “I — I could
not force myself upon them. They are
godlike men of established reputa-
tion . . .”

“Nonsense! You are as wise as any,
however you try to dissemble the fact.
What are you doing with these Tartes-
sians?”

“I thought — that is to say — they are
offering courses and have kindly con-
sented to enroll me.”

“The liawk takes flying-lessons from
the chicken. Well, strangers, any time
you find the Greek language too much
for you and wish to share with me the
money you will extract from Demokri-
tos, I will consider brushing up your
speech. After all it is I who first clas-
sified the parts of speech and formulated
the rules of grammar. Meanwhile, re-
joice!”

P ROTAGORAS went back to his pupils
while Demokritos, beaming, walked
away with Bulnes and Flin. The latter
said :

- “We’re going to teach Demokritos?
Gah!”

“What of it, if he can pay?”

“It’s like teaching Newton or Ein-
stein! This modest lad has one of the
greatest brains of all time!”

“My dear Wiyem, only last night we
learned he’s not Demokritos at all, but
a mode}’!! man impers — ”

“Nothing of the sort! Vasil could
have found some way of warping time
to bring Periklean Greece forward in-
stead of sending us back ! One’s no more
incredible than the other.”

“You’re an incorrigible rationalizer,
Bil. Personally I’ve never been con-
vinced of either. I think it’s all a hoax.”

THAT WAS 45

“Oh, no! Not that! Perhaps — d’you
know the theory of alternate time-
streams? We might be in another time-
stream which follov/s the same course
as our own, but three thousand years
later. So this world has only evolved
as far as the Periklean Age, whereas
our own — ”

“Suit yourself, comrade.” Bulnes
turned to the Greek. “My colleague and
I were discussing what sort of course to
gives you. Perhaps you would like lec-
tures on Tartessian theories of the
shape and motion of the earth ?”

“That would be most exciting!”

“Or the nature of matter?”

“Better yet!’*' cried Demokritos, and
to the astonishment and embarrassment
of Bulnes seized his hand and kissed it.
“You gentlemen are much too kind.
Perhaps it will interest you to compare
your theory with that which I received
from my master Leukippos, and to
which I have made a few trifling addi-
tions of my own.”

“What theory is that?”

“I call it the atomic theory, from the
‘atoms’ or tiny indivisible particles of
which we suppose things to be made.
It is my notion that whereas some of
these atoms are smooth, so that they
slide freely past each other as in fluids,
others are provided with hooks by which
tiiey become entagled in fixed masses,
as we see in solids . . .”

Later, when Demokritos had depart-
ed, Flin said: “Look here, Knut, there’s
no sense in having both of us hang
around the inn while he’s here. One’s
enough for lecturing.”

“You’d like to handle it alone?”

“No, no, on the contrary; you lecture
wh’le I hunt my wife.”

“V/hat? Don’t be ridiculous, my
friend. I can’t speak the language well
enough.”

“Certainly you can. You’re perfectly
competent. All you need is confidence,
and you’ll never learn to do by yourself
while I’m here to translate. We’ll run
over the talk now, and everything’ll be
top-hole.”

46 STARTLING STORIES

“What have you in mind ?”

“We’ll rough out the first lecture this
evening, and tomorrow you’ll take care
of him while I search for Thalia.”

“How will yon do that, if all the
women are locked up?”

“It’s not quite so bad as that. There
are some occasions that br>g them out:
religious ceremonials, of which there are
a good many, and the performance of
tragedies. 0 Podokles !”

“You wish?” said the innkeeper.

“When we left the Peiraieus they
were just about to play the Dionysiac
tragedies, and they told us these plays
would be shown in Athens in a few days.
When is that to be ?”

Podokles pondered, counting on his
fingers. “Today is the seventh of Elaph-
ebolion . . . therefore the first one will
be the day after tomorrow. By Soph-
okles, I am told.”

“Are you going?”

“Yes, if nothing prevents.”

“Would you like a companion?”

Podokles gave Flin one of his sus-
picious looks. “As a foreigner you
would have to pay to get in.”

“I know. Let us consider it a date,
then. What happens tomorrow, if any-
thing?”

“A special assembly of the citizens, to
ratify Perikles’s new treaty. You can-
not attend, you know.”

“There you are,” said Flin to Bulnes.
“You lecture, I hunt. And don’t feel
badly a:bout missing the play ; you’d find
it a weird business with those masks
and stilts anyway.”

B ulnes, though he realized that he
was the natural leader of the pair,
felt lost without Flin when Demokritos
shov/ed up for his lecture. To one whose
command of the language was still so
im.perfect, it was comforting to have
the little man around when one got
stuck.

Demokritos closed the session by say-
ing: “Before I go, Bouleus, I — I thought
perhaps you — ah — would consider an-
other pupil?”

“Certainly. Whom?”

“Kritias Kallaischrou, the son of my
host. When I applied to the proxenos
haying charge of visitors from Abdera,
he arranged for me to stay at the house
of Kallaischros.”

“That sounds good.”

“However — it embarrasses me to say
it — there is one matter — I trust you will
foro'ive my impertinence . . .”

Bulnes sighed. “I forgive everything
in advance, if you will — uh— only come
to the point.”

“The family, being among the richest
in Athens, would not dream of entering
an inn. You would have to come to the
house of Kallaischros.”

“That would be agreeable. Will you
conduct me there tomorrow?”

Demokritos assented and departed;
shortly thereafter Flin came in with an
odd look on his face.

“Kritias Kallaischrou?” he said when
Bulnes had told him the news. “That
must be the ‘Kritias’ of Plato’s dia-
logues ; an uncle or cousin of Plato. Bril-
liant, but a frightful bounder in politics.
However he’ll be only a young fellow
now.”

“What happened to you?” said Bul-
nes. ,

“Just had an odd experience. I spoke
to Per ikies.”

“Do tell! Wliat happened?”

Flin chewed his lip and stared into
space. “Dash it all. I knew there’d be
no women at the EkMesia, but I wanted
to see what I could. So I v/ent over to
the Pnyx. Of course since I didn’t have
a citizen’s pass the Scythians wouldn’t
let me in, but I hung around the en-
trance and heard much of what went on
inside. Perikles put over his treaty,
though the demagogues raised a row
about knuckling under the Sparta. Then
the president of the session adjourned
the meeting, and out they came. I picked
out a good-looking gray-haired chap in
the midst of the first lot. I had a feel-
ing I’d seen him somewhere, and won-
dered what he’d look like without the
shrubbery on his face. The others were

THE GLORY THAT WAS

aJl talking at once and waving their
hands, but not this one; very quiet and
imposed.

“Some other man brushed past and
shouted something about his having be-
trayed the interests of the people, and
there’d have been a jolly good row if
the Scythians hadn’t broken it up. But
from what they said I knew the dig-
nified chap was Perikles, and the other,
a big fat individual, was Kleon the Tan-
ner, one of his left-wing opponents.

“I took my courage in my hands and
stepped up to him, saying: ‘Perikles
Xanthippou, may I have a word?’
‘Speak,’ he said. ‘Pm told,’ I said, ‘that
a group of the radical opposition are
planning to attack you through your
friends. Specifically they’re going to
trump up charges against Anaxagoras,
Pheidias, and Aspasia.’

“He took it more coolly than Pd ex-
pected ; just looked me up and down and
said: ‘Who are you?’ ‘Philon of Tar-
tessos,’ I told him. He said: ‘You seem
well-informed for a foreigner. Be as-
sured that I also keep track of current
affairs.’ And off he v.^ent, leaving me
feeling foolish. I still can’t get over
that feeling I know the man. Blast it,
I begin to think you’re right, that this
is all a masquerade. I could cry, Pm so
disappointed.”

“Cheer up, my dear colleague,” said
Bulnes. “Suppose this were the real
Periklean Athens. Then, even if you
found your Thalia, what could you do
then? How could you get back to your
own time? Assuming you wish to, of
course.”

“You may assume,” said Flin gloom-
ily. “Pve seen enough of Periklean
Athens in the raw to last me some time.
I say, you h.aven’t a cig — there, see
what I mean?”

T he house of Kallaischros proved
larger and hetter-anpointed than that
of Meton, though laid out on the same
general plan. Demokritos said to Bul-
nes:

“This is your new pupil, Kritias, and

47

this is my host, the noble Kallaischros.”

“Rejoice!” said Bulnes. “This are —
is — a great pleasure.”

“How do you like our violet-crowned
city?” said Kallaischros.

“Magnificent!” said Bulnes. “Its in-
stitutions, also, I find most advanced and
interesting. Perhaps we could — uh —
apply some of them to advantage with
Tartessos.”

Kallaischros snorted. “Not if you
know what is good for you. Democracy !
Pah !”

“The regime of Perikles, then, does
not meet with universal approval?”

“That man in the Odeion!” shouted
Kallaischros. “Why anyone, reared in
one of our best families, with every ad-
vantage, should turn traitor to his class
in order to curry popularity with the
base ignorant rabble — ”

“Do not get excited. Father,” said
Kritias, a sleek fuzzy-faced^ youth with
a pet monkey on his shoulder. “It is bad
for you.”

“ — to experiment with our sacred con-
stitution, to waste the Delian treasury
on an extravagant program of unneces-
sary public works — ”

“Father!”

Bulnes said : “But, sir, I should think
that you, as a Eupatrid, would approve
this new agreement with Sparta?”

“The treaty I approve, but without
condonation of its author. If Perikles
thinks he can crawl back into the good
graces of the better sort of people by a
last-minute repentance — ”

“Father!”

“You are right, son. I should not
even think of politics, this vulgar dema-
gogy makes me so furious. It was not
like this when I was jmung . . . but to
your lessons.”

Bulnes found the day wearing. While
Demokritos, though brilliant, was a do-
cile, modest, and sweet-tempered pupil,
Kritias proved a scholar of a different
sort: a bumptious, argumentative, sharp-
tongued youth who took delight in em-
barrassing his teacher. When Bulnes
fell afoul of the complexities of Classical

4S STARTLING STORIES

Greek, Kritias would solemnly tell his
monkey: “He mixes his case-endings
just like a milk-drinking barbarian, does
he not?” And the monkey would wag
its little head in a Greek affirmative.

By noon, when the lecture ended,
Bulnes was glad to get back to the inn
of Podokles to sprawl on a bench and
drink a pint of wine with his lunch. He
was feeling slightly drunk and delight-
fully relaxed when a shabby youth came
in, peering around until he sighted
Bulnes. Bulnes thought he looked fa-
miliar, but could not place him until the
newcomer, approaching, said : “My mas-
ter sends me — ”

“Oh, you are Dromon, the slave of
Sokrates?”

“That is right. Sokrates sends me to
tell you that your friend, the other Tar-
tessian, is in the House.”

“In what house ?”

“In the desmoterion, of course.”

“What is that ?”

Dromon sighed his exasperation. “A
place where evil-doers are kept before
they are tried.”

“In jail?” Bulnes jumped up. “In the
name of Zeus, why?”

“I do not know. He made some dis-
turbance at the play, and the Scythians
carried him off.”

XI

^S^HE “HOUSE” stood at the north end
of the Agora — a small nondescript mud-
brick building whose rooms opened out-
ward. In one of these stinking cells sat
Wiyem Flin, shackled to a ring in the
wall by a fetter on one ankle.

“So there you are!” cried Flin when
he saw Bulnes. “Where the devil have
you been? I’ve sat here hours and I’m
jolly well starved. I should think you
could have come here a little more
promptly.”

“I’m sorry,” said Bulnes. “I came as
soon as I heard.” His jaw-muscles
tightened wit’n suppressed irritation.

“Well, why didn’t you start hunting
when I didn’t come back from the play

on time? It’s just like you never to
think of anyone but yourself. And why
haven’t you brought some lunch ”
“Don’t they feed you here?”-
“Of course not. Any ass knows that.
Why didn’t you — ”

“My dear sir,” said Bulnes, eyeing the
little man coldly, “I’ve done the best I
could, and if you’re going to be a bustard
I’ll simply go away until you stop. Do
I make myself clear?”

Flin growled something unintelligible
which Bulnes took for capitulation. He
asked: “What happened this time?”

“It wasn’t really my fault ; you’d have
done the same if you weren’t such a
cold-blooded — ”

“Get to the point, please.”

“Blast it. I’m trying to tell you ! Don’t
interrupt again. I went to the per-
formance of Aias with Podokles and
saw Thalia in the women’s section, as I
thought I might.”

“You did! Are you sure it was the
right woman?”

“I ought to know my own wife after
being married for eleven years! When
the play was over I hurried to the exit
and stopped Thalia on her way out.
‘Thalia!’ I said. ‘I’m here!’ She looked
at me blankly and replied, in Greek, that
she didn’t understand — ‘Ouk’ oida.’ So
I repeated what I’d said in that language.

“She said: ‘You’ve made a mistake;
my name isn’t Thalia.’ ‘Oh, yes it is,’
I said. ‘I’m Melite the wife of Euripides
Mnesarchou,’ she said. ‘Go away and
stop bothering me.’ And she started to
brush past me. I lost my head a bit,
I suppose, and caught her wrist, say-
ing: ‘Thalia, don’t you know your own
husband ?’ Then she screamed for help,
and the next thing I knew a couple of
the Scythians had grasped my arms and
hauled me out under the direction of a
tall chap with a tremendous long beard.
This, it turned out, was Euripides him-
self, the great playwright.

“One thing about a small town like
this, it doesn’t take you long to get from
place to place. It can’t have been ten
minutes before those coppers had

THE GLORY

marched me all the way from the theater
to the Agora, where the Polemarchos
holds forth. We had to wait at the Epi-
loukeion for the Polemarchos to show
up. When he did come, Euripides laid
a complaint before him of second-degree
assault or something of the sort. The
Polemarchos asked me if I had anything
to say, and I was so rattled by that time
I could only babble about Thalia’s being
really my wife and not that of Euripides.
So the Polemarchos ordered me confined
under a bail of five mnai pending my
trial. What are you going to do about
it?”

A tart sentence formed in Bulnes’
mind, asking Flin why he should do any-
thing for a damned fool, but with his
usual self-control the Spaniard merely
said: “Five mnai, eh? That’s five hun-
dred drachmai, which would be about —
ah — seventy-five to a hundred krauns in
modern money. Not unreasonable, I
suppose, but much more than I have.”

“Why not ask one of your pupils?
Demokritos seems pretty well uphol-
stered, and Kritias is simply rolling in
the stuff.”

“An idea, comrade. Definitely an
idea.”

“How’d you find out about me ?” asked
Flin.

“Sokrates sent his slave to tell me.”

“Pie did ? Dashed decent, considering
how vexed he was with us. That’s the
real Sokrates for you.”

“Yes?” said Bulnes, cocking a skep-
tical eyebrow. “We shall see about that.
Meanwhile I’ll get you some lunch and
then go see about raising bail.”

“Hurry up about it,” said Flin. “If
I’m knocked on the head and thrown
into the Barathron it’ll be all your fault.
And none of that beastly barley-por-
ridge, mind you !”

B ulnes, wondering what he had done
to deserve so unreasonable a com-
panion, departed rather than argue the
point. In the Agora he bought a loaf
of bread, a bunch of mixed vegetables,
and a cheap cup and plate to hold the

THAT WAS 49

victuals. He filled the cup at a public
fountain and carried the meal back to
Flin, who sneered at it but fell raven-
ously to eating.

Bulnes then hiked to the house of
Kallaischros and asked for Demokritos.
Since not Kallaischros nor Kritias nor
Demokritos was in, the porter told
Bulnes: “The young men have gone to
the Kynosarges.”

Bulnes set out on his weary way again.
Outside the Diomean Gate, near the
great unfinished Olympieion, lay the
Kynosarges, a small park. The Scythian
at the entrance looked Bulnes over to
see that he bore no slave-brands and
waved him on in. Bulnes passed a couple
of altars and came to a large quadrangle
comprising a gym-building and a series
of porticoes.

In and around the quadrangle naked
men were running, jumping, wrestling,
and otherwise exerting themselves.
Bulnes (who took a dim view of calis-
thenics) passed them by, for they re-
minded him that he possessed the be-
ginnings of a middle-aged paunch, which
he somehow never found time, energy,
or will-power to train back. At length
he located Demokritos in a huddle under
one of the porticoes. The young man
was engaged in a game of Greek check-
ers, with several kibitzers standing
around.

Demokritos looked up and said: “Re-
joice, my dear Bouleus! I shall be
through here directly, as soon as I have
forced this man’s stones off the sacred
line.”

He made a move, and his opponent
said: “That does it. Away with you,
man of Abdera! Tyche is too good for
you.”

As the group broke up a voice said:
“The Tartessian professor! MTiat can
we do for you here?” It was Kritias with
dirt on his face and his skin glistening
with oil. “How would three falls out of
five suit you? Come now_ — ”

“If you please, gentlemen,” said Bul-
nes. “I am here on more serious busi-
ness. My colleague is in prison.”

50 STARTLING STORIES

K RITIAS laughed loudly. “That is
good. What has he done, broken into
the treasure of Athene Parthenos?”

Bulnes smiled. “Not so serious as
that, but vexatious nevertheless.”

He thereupon began the story he had
been rehearsing: one of those crafty
concoctions with enough truth in it to
be difficult to disprove:

“When we dwelt in Tartessos my col-
league Philon had a wife on whom he
doted. But on an evil day a Carthagin-
ian galley raided the coast near our city
for slayes and caught my poor friend’s
wife. Ever since then he has been little
mad on this one subject. When he sees
a woman he think looks like his wife, he
will have it that it is indeed she and
tries to claim her.”

“And he has been claiming the wife
of one of our people?” said Kritias.

“Exactly so. It was at the play this
morning, and the victim was the wife of
Euripides the playwright, who had my
friend thrown in jail for making a dis-
turbance.”

“That will teach him,” said Kritias.
Demokritos said : “On the contrary, it
proves my point, my dear Kritias. You
will remember my saying that in an
ideal commonwealth slavery would not
be allowed.”

“Nonsense!” said Kritias. “Without
slaves who would do the work? We, of
course, and we should therefore have no
time for sports, art, science, and litera-
ture. Besides, it is logical that we wise
and brave Hellenes should rule the
stupid Northerners and the cowardly
Southerners. But — what is to be done ?”

Bulnes said: “First, he is in jail on
bail of five mnai, which I do not have.”

Demokritos and Kritias looked at one
another. The former said: “I am sorry,
but when I planned this trip to Athens
I did not allow for such an unexpected
expense. Plowever, it is otherwise wfith
you, 0 Kritias.”

“We do not after all know these Tar-
tessians very well,” said Kritias.

Demokritos said : “Oh, I think we can
trust Bouleus. He stands to gain more

from this lecture-course than by letting
his friend jump bail.”

“Fair enough,” said Kritias. “If you
will remind me when you appear for the
lecture tomorrow, Bouleus, the money
shall be given you.”

Bulnes said: “Thank you, my dear
friends. However, while I dislike ex-
ceedingly to seem ungrateful, my poor
colleague am still in the House with a
fetter on his leg. You have not the sum
with you, have you?”

“My dear man,” said Kiritias, “I do
not carry the family patrimony on my
back as an invitation to every footpad in
Athens. And as I do not wish to leave
my exercise here, you will have to wait
till tomorrow'.”

“I see,” said Bulnes, his smile becom-
ing a bit glassy. “Perhaps you could
advise me what to do next?”

Kritias said: “Your best chance, I
should say, would be to persuade the
complainant to withdraw his complaint.
Did you say he was Euripides the poet?”

“Yes. Where is he to be found ?”

“He has a house in the Peiraieus, but
most of his time he spends on Salamis.
The man is said to be a worse recluse
than Timon. Rejoice!” And Kritias
strolled off.

T he sun had sunk low when Bulnes
knocked on the door of the house of
Euripides in Peiraieus. It had taken
him over an hour to walk down from
Athens, and another half-hour to locate-
the house by incessant questioning, for
most streets had no names and house-
numbers had not even been thought of.

The spy-hole opened. “No, the master
is not in.”

“When do you expect him?”

“I do not know. Who are you?”
“Bouleus of Tartessos.”

“What do you want?”

> “I should like to discuss the regret-
table incident of this morning at the
Dionysia.”

“You mean when the barbarian tried
to kidnap the mistress ?”

“Yes,” said Bulnes.

THE GLORY

“You will have to come back later.”

Bulnes said: “Look, I have just
walked dov/n from Athens. May I at
least come in to rest for a few minutes ?”

“No, I cannot admit anybody in the
master’s absence! Go away!”

Bulnes was about to stalk away when
he heard voices raised in disputation,
and then the same slave’s face appeared
again at the hole. “The mistress says
you may come in.”

The mistress of the house awaited
him in the Andronitis. Bulnes looked
hard at her as he came forward. It was
Thalia, all right, perfectly recognizable
despite her long chiton and the silver
tiara on her glossy-black hair : a wom.an
in her mid-thirties, still attractive in a
lush full-blown way. Although he had
not disliked Flin’s wife, back in Eng-
land, he had never taken much to her
either: quite intelligent, but a garrulous
and gossipy female, and definitely the
dominating half of the couple.

He looked her in the eye for any spark
of recognition, but saw none. Instead
she gave him the hand-wave that here
took the place of a handshake and said :

“Rejoice, good Bouleus. Euripides
will be home in an hour or so, and
meanwhile there is no point in your
wandering the Peiraieus like the ghost
of an unburied corpse. Sosias, fetch a
stool for the gentleman, and a small
stoup of wine. (See his frown ; he thinks
your presence here will compromise me.)
And rout out Euages to take the ferry
over to Salamis and tell the master he
has a visitor.” She turned back to
Bulnes. “I understand you have come
on behalf of the other Tartessian, he
who accosted me this morning?”

“Yes,” said Bulnes, sitting down grate-
fully.

“Whatever possessed the man to act
so? Is he mad?”

Bulnes told Thalia-Melite the same
tale he had told his pupils.

“The poor fellow!” she said. “I am
sure that under this circumstance Euri-
pides will withdraw the complaint. My
husband has a good heart if you can get

THAT WAS 51

him down from the clouds long enough.”

“I am told,” said Bulnes, “that Euri-
pides spends most of his time on Sa-
lamis ?”

“Yes, the old dotard! Every morning
before dawn he and Kephisophon take
their boat across the channel, with one
of the slaves to row, and there they
spend the day scribbling. He claims he
cannot concentrate in a house full of
wives and children and slaves, which is
ridiculous. As if his wretched plays
were more important than his own
household.”

“Who is Kephisophon?”

“His secretary. The Euripides is be-
coming one of the standard sights of
Athens, along with the Akropolis'and
the ship of the divine Theseus. I am
told guides harangue visitors about him :
‘And there, gentlemen, is the island of
Salamis, scene of the great sea-fight
against the trousered Mede, and there is
tffe cave of the eminent poet Euripides.
If you look sharply you can see Euri-
pides himself in the entrance, no doubt
working on some sublime new drama’.”

“A man thoroughly absorbed in his
work?” said Bulnes, to make polite con-
versation.

“Absorbed ! Why, he will not take the
time to buy food for the house, which
every man in Athens does as a m.atter
of course, and as a result the slaves
swindle us right and left. Personally
I think little of these Attic customs, but
one must conform to some degree.”

“You are not an Athenian?”

“Yes and no. My parents were, so I
rank as a citizen, but my father was
ostracized and spent his exile in hollow
Lakedaimon, where I was reared. There
women are personalities in their own
right.”

“You must find it quite a contrast.”

“Contrast!” she leaned forward on
her stool. “Many a time I have thought
I should go mad. Danae in her tov?er
had no more frustrating lot, locked up
with no company but a husband old
enough to be my father, and occasional
visits from these vapid Athenian dames

52 ‘ STARTLING STORIES

—I, who as a young girl ran and
wrestled naked on the athletic-field like
a man , .

During this conversation she had been
hitching her stool further and further
forward, and now was gently pressing
her thigh against his. Her face was
flushed, breath coming fast, dark eyes
half-closed and mouth half-open. All
the slaves seemed to have vanished.
Sacrosanta madre; she acts as if ,

Bulnes’s own pulse began to pound —
but then he thought of the enormous
complications and decided to be good —
this once anyway. Another time ....

He drew back stiffly, saying: “Tell me,
what is Euripides working on now ? For
rumors of his fame have reached far
Tartessos.”

“Oh,” she said, with a look that ex-
pressed regret for having admitted this
stick of a foreigner in the first place.
“Some huge tetralogy; I never keep
track of his works . . . .”

xn

.M. HE STREET-DOOR opened and in
came a man as tall as Bulnes, with
bushy eyebrows, a patriarchal nose, and
a graying beard down to his solar plexus.
Behind him, a younger man with a mass
of papyrus-rolls under his arm looked
askance at Bulnes, though the older one
seemed to find nothing amiss.

“Boleus of Tartessos? Bouleus of
Tartessos? Do I know you, my dear
fellow? Thank you, Melite, but you had
better go back into the Gynaikonitis like
a good girl. What did you say your
name was, my dear sir?”

Bulnes told him again.

“Ah, yes, I remember. Why, you
scoundrel, you are the barbarian who
caused such an unseemly disturbance
this mor — but no, that cannot be, be-
cause you are tall and thin like me,
whereas this man was short and thick
like Kephisophon. *Was he not from
Tartessos too? Do you know him?”

Bulnes told his prepared story.

“Ah, yes, that is the way of it. It

shows the inscrutible workings of Fate,
for if Melite had not had a cold last week
she would have seen the Aias at the
local theater, and I should not have had
to convey her all the way to Athens.
How did you hear of this regrettable
incident?”

“Our friend Sokrates sent his slave to
inform me.”

“Do you mean Sokrates Sophroniskou
the Philosopher?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you not say so at once?
Sokrates is an old and valued friend of
mine, and any friend of his is welcome.
What did you think of the play?”

“I have not seen it,” said Bulnes.

“Oh, that is right, you are not the
man who attended it and accosted my
wife. What do you say his name is?
Philon of Tartessos. Ah, yes. A won-
derful tragedian, the Sophokles, do you
not think? We are friendly rivals, you
know.”

“Why are you not competing?”

“Because I could not finish my tetra-
logy in time. I am so wretchedly absent-
minded, I forgot the date comes early
this year.”

“Really ?” said Bulnes, glad to remem-
ber some of the lectures on Greek drama
that Wiyem Flin had inflicted upon him.
“Is one of the plays about the witch
Medeia?”

“Why, yes . . . how could you know?”

“It seemed likely. You see, I know
the general plot of that myth. It has
penetrated even to Tartessos, as has
your own poetic reputation.”

“Yes, you are quite a literate and
civilized people, are you not? I hope to
work in a good word in the Medeia for
regarding barbarians as fellow human
beings. Could I read you some of the
passages we worked out today?”

“I should be honored.”

“Very well, Kephisophon, find that
section where lason offers Medeia to
provide for her after their divorce . . .
ah, here we are.”

And the dramatist began tramping
back and forth in the court, orating.

THE GLORY

waving his manuscript, and flapping his
himation ;

“Oh, peace! Enough
Of these vain wars: / will no more
thereof.

If th'oti wilt take of all that I pos-
sess

Aid for these babes and thine own
helplessness. . . .”

His incredible beard lashed the spring
air. Every few minutes he would turn
on Bulnes with :

“How do you like that?”

B ulnes made comments as intelligent
as his limited know'ledge of the art
and command of the language permitted,
and even suggested a trifling change or
two. Then a slave came out of the
gynaeceum and whispered into the ear
of Euripides.

“Ah, I forgot again! Hippodamos is
coming for dinner !” said the poet. “My
dear fellow, I hate to rush you off this
way, but you know how it is. Here,
take a piece of manuscript with you to
read. I should like your criticism, since
you seem well-informed in such matters.
Kephisophon, find the rough draft of the
opening scene and give it to Bouleus.
You understand, though, Bouleus, that
the final version is considerably im-
proved.”

“Thank you,” said Bulnes. “But ex-
cuse me . . .”

“Oh, yes, there was something else
you wished to see me about. Now what
was it? Do not tell me; let me guess.
Ahem. What was it?”

“About my friend in the jail. Will
you withdraw' the complaint?”

“Certainly, now that you have ex-
plained it. What was your explanation?
No matter. Let me see; I shall not go
to Athens soon again, but I will write
a letter tomorrow and send it to the
Polemarchos by a slave. Remind me of
that, Kephisophon. And now rejoice, my
foreign friend, and do not fail to let me
know your opinion of the play.”

THAT WAS 53

Bulnes stepped out into the broad
street and started back towards Athens.
His rest had much strengthened him,
and now if he co.uld only get a bite to
eat ... he stopped as he passed the
Hippodamian Agora and bought a small
loaf and a sausage (to hell with trichi-
nosis, he thought) and a scoop of mus-
tard. With these he made a fair ap-
proximation of an American hot-dog.

He resumed his hike, holding his loaf
with one hand and munching, and the
roil of manuscript with the other. The
sausage seemed to be made mainly of
blood and tripe, not bad but not very
tasty either. He shook out the scroll
and held it up to read by the pink light
of the setting sun. Hell, he thought, all
the words run together. As if Greek
weren’t hard enough to read with the
words separated!

He rolled the manuscript up, tucked
it under his arm, and set off again; a
man stepped out from behind a building,
deftly snatched the scroll out from un-
der Bulnes’s arm, and ran like the devil.

“Hey!” roared Bulnes. “Come back
here !”

He looked around; not a Scythian in
sight. He started running after the
thief, who doubled around a couple of
corners and almost lost his pursuer.

The man’s chiton bobbed ahead in the
twilight, heading for one of the gates.
He flew through and Bulnes pounded
after him, sandals slapping. Although
Bulnes was hardly in shape for a five-
mile run, his fury at the bustard’s im-
pertinence kept him going. Moreover
he would have an embarrassing time ex-
plaining the disappearance of the manu-
script.

T he thief was evidently a younger
man, for he pulled steadily ahead of
Bulnes on the road for Athens. He
splashed through the ford across the
Kephisos, half -fell, recovered, and limped
when he came out of the water on the
far side. Evidently he had sprained an
ankle. Bulnes, blown and panting, re-
gretted that it wasn’t his neck.

54 STARTLING STORIES

The chase continued, both walking.
When Bulnes’s greater length of leg
brought him closer to the thief, the lat-
ter broke into a limping run and wid-
ened the distance again. Little by little,
despite the other man’s sprints, Bulnes
pulled up on him.

The stars came out, and jackals
yapped across the Attic plain, and still
the chase continued.

The thief reached the Peiraic Gate of
Athens about fifty meters ahead of
Bulnes, whose hope that the guards
would stop the man were again disap-
pointed.

But they did stop Bulnes. “What you
doing?” said a couple in pidgin-Greek,
closing in on him in the dark. “Gate
closed for night.”

“I am chasing that thief ! Come along
with me.”

“No thief. Who you? Maybe you
thief, huh ?”

Either they were determined to be
stupid, or were in league with the thief.
Bulnes noted that one of them had left
his unstrung bow leaning against the
wall.

Bulnes snatched up the bowstave.
Whonk! Whonk! went the wood against
the pointed Scythian caps. One archer
sat down; the other fell forward to
hands and knees. Bulnes raced out the
other end of the enclosure, his tired feet
speeded by the uproar behind him. Soon
ScjAhian boots sounded on the dirt.

As he did not think he could outrun
the entire Athenian police-force, Bulnes
slipped around the first corner, threw
away the bow-stave, rearranged his hi-
mation, and started back the way he had
come, towards the Peiraic Gate, like any
other stroller out for a turn in the
evening. A group of Scythians went
past, asking each other loudly which way
the scoundrel had gone. Bulnes let them
bump him up against the side of the
house, made a vague gesture in response
to their questions, and watched them
scatter around corners and disappear.

Meantime he had lost track of his
quarry. Bulnes wrote oif the manu-

script as lost and set out wearily for the
Agora. He would have to get another
meal for Flin before turning in for the
night.

He had gone only a few blocks when
he spied a man sitting by the side of the
street in the dirt, ahead'"bf him, with
his back against the stucco house-wall
and exhaustion writ in every line of his
posture. As Bulnes came in sight, how-
ever, the man heaved himself to his feet,
pushed the hair out of his eyes, and
started walking ahead of Bulnes, also
towards the Agora. He limped and car-
ried a roll of papyrus.

Although it was now too dark to rec-
ognize faces at that distance, Bulnes felt
sure this w'as his thief. This time, how-
ever, instead of rushing upon the man,
he thought it wiser to tail him. There
must be some peculiar reason for the
man’s snatching the roll ; it was not the
sort of booty that the average thief
would go for.

The man continued steadily southeast,
skirting the Agora, where the wicker
kiosks had all been folded up for the
night. As the man reached the south
end of the Agora he bore left, towards
the east end of the Akropolis, which
towered against the stars in front of
Bulnes.

P RESENTLY the man came to a small
enclosure, a kind of one-block park.
Bulness remembered the day Flin had
dragged him all over the Akropolis. The
little teacher had pointed out this en-
closure as the Theseion, or shrine of
Theseus, the leading legendary hero of
the city of Athens.

The Theseion had a thick hedge around
it. The thief hobbled along this for a
way, then ducked through a hole in the
shrubbery. Bulnes followed in time to
see the man disappearing into a small
building among the trees and statues.
This edifice was the shrine of Theseus:
a squarish structure open at one side,
with a row' of colum.ns across the en-
trance. Bulnes ran on tiptoe to the en-
trance and peered around one end of the

THE GLORY THAT WAS

55

building-wall into the interior.

Inside he could dimly make out mural
paintings on the walls, an altar, and a
primitive-looking cult-statue on a ped-
estal. The thief was standing with his
back to him, watching the ground be-
hind the altar.

With a whirr of invisible machinery
the altar began to tilt forward. A line
of light appeared along its base. The
altar seemed to be fastened to the top
of a trapdoor that was now opening. It
nodded forward until it almost touched
the ground, and the trapdoor was ver-
tical.

The thief stepped into the opening and
began to go down a flight of steps. One
— two — three — only his upper half was
in sight ; then only his head ; then noth-
ing. The altar began to rise toward its
former vertical position.

Bulnes rushed over to the trapdoor.
He caught a glimpse of movement and a
snatch of speech. He was sure the place
below was electrically lighted, but by
lamps so shaded that he *could see, but
little. The altar rose, the lighted area
contracting to a wedge.

Bulnes thought desperately of stick-
ing his foot in the trapdoor; but if the
door were power-operated the result
might be hard on the foot. Then, just
before the light disappeared, he snatched
out his sheath-knife and thrust the hilt
between the closing trapdoor and its
frame. The m.ovement stopped with a
jar, leaving the altar of Theseus leaning
at a slight angle.

Bulnes reflected that there was prob-
ably some code of raps or words by
which the thief — a pretty well-connected
sort of thief too — announced his pres-
ence. He put his ear to the crack. Voices
still came from below. He thought that
the language was English, spoken in a
variety of accents.

Bulnes put his shoulder against the
altar and pushed. To his surprise it
gave. Not readily, but a centimeter at
a time. Meanwhile small mechanical
sounds came from beneath his feet as

the machinery was forced to run in re-
verse. The minute he let go, the altar
started to tip back upright again.

He put his full strength into it. Down
went the altar, slowly, with a creak and
a whirr. Up from the depths came the
voices of two men: "... ’ow the bloody
’ell was I to know?”

“Mr. God! Can you not the instruc-
tions remember?”

“They didn’t cover this case.”

“The sector-super vill hell raise.”

“But ’e was the blighter oo told me to
get that bleeding manuscript at all costs.
It seems they want to compare . . . .”

Bulnes took a quick look. One of the
men was standing at the base of the
steps with his back to Bulnes. The gods
were really too kind this time ; the shout-
ing of the disputants had drowned out
the sound of the opening of the trap-
door.

In a swift movement Bulnes threw otf
his himation, picked up his knife from
the ground beside the hatch-frame, and
leaped for the back of the nearer man.

XIII

HIS feet struck the man’s back,
Knut Bulnes brought his right fist down
on the fellow’s head in a hammer-blow.
The pommel of his knife hit the mean’s
close-cut hair, and the man collapsed.

; Bulnes sprang away as the body fell
forward and rolled on its side. He lit
lightly on the concrete floor, having just
time to observe that, whereas the small
thief was dressed in on Ionic chiton
(essentially a big flour-sack with holes
for arms and head) the man he had
just felled wore a blue-denim shirt to
which was pinned a large identification-
badge with photograph, and a pair of
work-pants held up by a belt with loops
through which were thrust screw-
drivers and similar tools.

The other man, however, more ur-
gently claimed his attention, for he
dropped a similar badge, which he had
been in the act of pinning to his gar-
ment, and pulled out a knife that had

56 STARTLING STORIES

been strapped to his thigh under the
skirt of his chiton.

Bulnes’s instincts warned him not to
admit that he was anything other than
one more pseudo-Periklean Hellene in-
tent upon getting his stolen property
back. Accordingly he said, in Classical
Greek : “Give me that, you thief !”

At the same time he advanced, knife
ready. The little man moved, not to-
wards Bulnes, but at an angle, towards
the corner in which the blond man had
been sitting. In this nook there was
an office chair,, a shelf on which lay a
clip-board with sheets of paper at-
tached, and a small litter of pencils,
paper-clips, and the like. Above the
shelf, on the wall, was a panel with a
telephone mouthpiece and many buttons
and switches.

The thief limped towards the corner,
menacing Bulnes with the dagger in one
hand while reaching with the other for
the buttons. Bulnes guessed that he
meant to push an alarm-button and
with a feline leap sprang in front of
the panel.

The thief, however, came right at
Bulnes, the dagger held stiffly in front
of him like a fencer’s foil. Bulnes
knocked the man’s forearm aside, and
' the man, coming on headlong, impaled
himself on Bulnes’s own knife, which
slid between his ribs up to the hilt. The
impetus of the man’s lunge drove Bul-
nes’s arm back. Bulnes shoved hard
and thrust the man backward. The
thief fell supine, dead eyes staring up-
ward, while a rapidly widening spot
of blood stained the front of his chiton.

Now, thought Bulnes, he was in for
it. His stabbing of the two gangsters
in the Peiraieus on the night of his ar-
rival might be excused as self-defense;
but that excuse, though equally valid,
might not go down for the killing of
this character, who, being one of
“them,” must have some official status.

Far from any feeling of triumph,
Buities took a morose view of the whole
business. Aside from the fact that he
might be adjudged a murderer by the

mysterious Them, he regarded himself
as a poised and resourceful fellow who
by foresight and diplomacy could attain
his end without resort to crude violence
-—despite the fact that his fondness for
adventuring along the water-fronts of
the world’s tougher seaports had several
times involved him in similar affrays.

A QUICK check showed the small
^ man dead and the large one alive
and likely to regain consciousness at
any time. Bulnes scooped up the papy-
rus roll and started up the steps down
which he had come ... to realize that
the trapdoor was again closed.

He placed a hand against its under-
side and pushed. No result. Harder —
still none. He remembered the auto-
matic-closing feature of the opening,
and that it had taken all his strength,
applied with much greater leverage to
the top of the altar, to open it before.
Moreover it probably had an automatic-
locking mechanism.

He came back down the steps and ex-
amined the panel over the shelf in the
corner. There was one big red button
labeled “Djen. El.” (“General Alarm”) ,
several smaller ones bearing such cryp-
tic abbreviations as “Kor.” and “Tra.,”
and others identified by numbers or let-
ters alone. There was no way to tell,
without instruction, which buttons
worked the trapdoor.

Bulnes looked up and down the tun-
nel. For the most part it was lined
with bare concrete, sloping slightly up
in one direction and down in the other.
Across the tunnel from the seat stood
a full-length mirror, and next to it a
branch tunnel went off in the direction
of the Peiraieus. In the down direc-
tion, a few meters away, an object
stood in a niche in the wall. As he
walked toward it Bulnes saw that it was
a large rack holding six light machine-
guns. The guns stood like a row of
the Emperor’s guards, butt-plates in
slots at the bottom and muzzles project-
ing up through holes in the top, secured
by a steel bar that ran horizontally

THE GLORY

through their trigger-guards. At one
end the bar projected through a hole in
the side of the rack, and at the other it
entered a lock. Bulnes tried the bar
with his fingers, but it was firmly fixed
in place.

However, perhaps something could be
done with the rack as a whole. When
he heaved on it, it leaned slightly.
Though heavy, it was not immovable.
By repeated tugging he hauled it out
from the wall, though not so far as to
clear its ends from the niche. Then
he went back to his bodies.

First he appropriated the dead man’s
identification-badge. Then he removed
the chiton from the body of the thief
and cut it into strips. With these he
gagged the other man and bound his
wrists and ankles. He dragged the fel-
low down the tunnel, heaved him to
shoulder-height with straining muscles,
and pushed him over the top of the
gun-rack. The man’s body fell with a
multiple thump to the floor behind the
rack.

Then Bulnes went back, picked up the
naked corpse of the thief, and shoved it
after his first victim. There was not
much room between the rack and the
wall behind, and Bulnes had to reach
over the top of the rack and wrestle
with the corpse to make it lie down out
of sight and not leave a pallid foot
sticking up.

Panting, he looked again about him.
So long as he was stuck underground
he might as well explore a little and
learn as much as he could in the course
of looking for another outlet. For this
was evidently where They had their
lair.

He again picked up the manuscript
of Euripides and started down the tun-
nel. Beyond the gun-rack the tunnel
bent slightly, and around the bend he
came upon another alcove in which
stood two shiny motor-scooters. Bulnes
was tempted to try to ride one — but as
examination showed them to have their
master-switches locked he gave up the
idea. Presently he came to an inter-

THAT WAS 57

section or fork. The small metal direc-
tional signs set in the wall bore legends
in code: “A-64” and the like. Bulnes
nevertheless looked at them carefully
so as not to lose his way on his return.

\ S HE walked he became aware of
^ a faint distant hum. The tunnel
did a dog-leg, and before he knew it
he was upon another trapdoor exit like
that through which he had entered. At
the base of the steps sat another Ker-
beros : a brown-skinned fellow with
straight black hair.

Bulnes started a little at the sight
of the man, who sat at his panel read-
ing a magazine. The man looked up;
their eyes met.

Bulnes cursed himself for hesitating.
He should have breezed on by, perhaps
dropping a curt greeting without break-
ing stride. He thought fast, then said
in his most American English; “Say,
Mac, Pm a little turned around. Which
way is the Sector-Super’s office?’’

The man addressed spoke with a Hin-
dustani accent: “Farst right, second
left. It is just bepore you come to the
entrance to the condeetioner substa-
tion.”

“Thanks, bud,” said Bulnes, and
strode off.

Soon he came to another intersection.
As he stepped out into it he had to
jump back to avoid being run down by
another man on a motor scooter. The
man wore the sandals, felt hat, and
chlamys or riding-cloak of an Athenian
ephebos. The cloak streamed out be-
hind him leaving his body otherwise
naked, which gave an odd effect.

Remembering his instructions Bulnes
took the right-hand tunnel. The me-
chanical hum grew louder. More men
passed him, some in the dress of Peri-
klean Greece, others in modern work-
ing-clothes. Bulnes turned left at the
next intersection. More men, more
scooters, more noise, more cryptic signs.
Doors began to appear in the walls of
the tunnel. Bulnes noted the legends
on them: “9-E-401”, “Fai. Dip.”, and

58 STARTLING STORIES

at last one which read :

SEKTER SYUUP.

Bulnes toyed with the idea of walk-
ing in and handing his papyrus to the
receptionist or secretary or the superin-
tendent himself, but immediately ve-
toed the notion. After a slight pause
he hurried on. More noise, more peo-
ple, and then an open door with a chain
across it, through which most of the
noise seemed to come.

The sound was a mechanical clicking
and buzzing such as one hears in a
large telephone exchange, and the sight
glimpsed through the opening was, in
fact, much like such a place. There
were endless banks of gadgets, each
bank reaching to the high ceiling. Re-
lays clicked, lights flashed, and in the
electro-mechanical jungle a few tech-
nicians moved casually, pressing a but-
ton or throwing a switch or simply
staring at the panels of little flashing
lights.

Bulnes, not wishing to attract atten-
tion by interest in a sight that must be
old hat to those who worked here,
walked on past the open door, past an-
other like it, and then turned and re-
traced his steps, taking a good long
look through each opening.

A PICTURE began to form in his
mind. The scientists of Emperor
Vasil’s staff must have developed a
machine that conditioned people (hence
the name “conditioner”) to believe any
predetermined story about who they
were and when and where they had
lived all their lives. Then the Emp had
restored Greece to its Periklean condi-
tion (having first dismantled and stored
all the genuine relics of antiquity in
that country) and likewise converted
some millions of Greeks into believing
they were truly Sokrates, Perikles,
et cetera.

Vasil would have indoctrinated these
unwitting actors (by some sort of super-
post-hypnotic suggestion?) to corre-
spond with all the known historical
characters of the time in question : the

530’s before Christ. He would more-
over have indoctrinated enough others
to give a lifelike human environment —
the right proportions of slaves and free
men, workers and aristocrats, and so
forth: — for the reenactment of the
drama of the Greek Golden Age. And
no doubt the machine of. which he had
glimpsed one substation kept control of
these people so that they should con-
tinue to act as they would have in the
real Hellas.

The tunnel system, which might well
extend all over Greece, served to main-
tain contact between the actors on the
surface above and the unseen puppet-
masters below, who could emerge by
one of the secret entrances when ex-
pedient, pass among the pseudo-Athe-
nians as one of them, gather data, and
return to the tunnels.

That was no doubt the reason for the
theft of the manuscript of Euripides:
it was a datum. Why? Oh, they might
want to compare the Medeia composed
by pseudo-Euripides with the real one
written by the real Euripides, to see if
the m,achine was keeping the pseudo-
Eurip on his rails. . . .

But was the machine supposed to
force reenactment of the entire history
of the period? Or was Vasil simply
winding the play up, as it were, and
letting it go from there as the human
puppets chose to play it?

Was Periklean history going in fact
according to schedule? Although Flin
said the Peloponnesian War should be
about to break out, all the talk in this
pseudo-Athens was of the new treaty
that Perikles had engineered with
Sparta and the consequent prospect of
peace.

Bulnes decided that he did not know
enough Greek history to judge the mat-
ter. While a cultivated and well-in-
formed man, he was after all a maga-
zine editor specializing in current
events, and his knowledge of ancient
history was confined to scraps remem-
bered from school twenty-odd years be-
fore the bits picked up from Flin.

THE GLOKY

There were of course other possibili-
ties. Perhaps Vasil IX had at his com-
mand some gadget by which "he could
actually snatch Periklean Hellas out of
its proper space-time frame and bring
it forward to this modern era, as Flin
had suggested ... no, that wouldn’t
work. P>ulnes was sure that Euripides’s ■
wife Melite was really Flin’s wife
Thalia, and the chances were atomically
small that Thalia would have had a per--
feet double — an identical twin — who
lived three thousand years before her.
Besides, the logical mind of Knut Bul-
nes rebelled at the thought of such fan-
ciful comings and goings in time.

Or could it be that the Emp had a
gadget that, while it would not disturb
the real space-time fabric, would enable
Vasil or his men to view what actually
happened at some past time — a sort of
temporal television? In this way it
would be possible, by a vasjt enough
amount of detail work, to follow the
career of every real Greek of the Perik-
lean Age from birth to death. With
this enormous mass of data one could,
at least in theory, set up a pseudo-
Hellas wherein every individual of the
real one was approximately by some
bemused modern Greek acting out his
part.

And most obscure at all : Why should
Vasil undei'take such an extraordinary
enterprise ?

It must be fabulously expensive, and
moreover the Emp would be treasuring
up trouble for himself by trampling on
the rights of so many people — using
them as guinea-pigs without their con-
sent — in case the near-dictatorship of
the Lenz ministry should fall some day.
Could it be that Vasil was merely em-
ploying the reenactment as an esthetic
experience? Buines remembered the
stories that Vasil, a devotee of small
and esoteric cults, believed himself a
reincarnation of several great historical
leaders : Perikles , of Athens, Henri
Quatre of France, Franklin Roosevelt
of the United States. . . .

If this worked, would he next under-

THAT WAS 59

take the reenactment of the history of
France in the sixteenth century, or of
the United States in the twentieth, just
to see his eminent predecessors per-
foi'm? The mind reeled at the thought.

B ULNES reminded himself that the
m.ore urgent problem for him right
now was to escape to the upper world
again before his imposture was pene-
trated.

He walked briskly back the way he
had come. When he arrived at the place
where he had entered the tunnel-system
he found a group of three people. One
sat at the control-panel — not the blond
man with the German accent, but a
dish-faced Slavic type — ^while two
others, one in work-clothes and one
with a peaked cap and pistol-holster
that suggested a security-organization,
talked to him.

All three looked around as Buines
came towards them, and he of the pistol
said, “Hey, you seen Muller?”

“No,” said Buines. “What’s become
of him?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.
Surkov here came to relieve him and he
wasn’t there. If he’s wandered off to
get a brew, it’ll be the last of his job.”

The other standing man said; “I
don’t think Manfred would do that.
Sure he likes a beer, but he’s pretty
conscientious about regs.”

Buines felt his scalp prickle with the
knowledge that Manfred Muller lay
bound only a few meters away. If these
employees of the System didn’t locate
him soon, he would probably get his gag
loose and yell. Or even if he couldn’t,
one can still grunt or goan with a gag
in one’s mouth. Buines asked the seated
man : “Didn’t he at least leave a note
for you?”

“Not one liddle think,” said Surkov.
“Nothing but dis empty sit.”

At that instant another man appeared
in the tunnel, a stout character wrapped
in a himation. As he walked up, Sur-
kov said: “Hallo, Piei’re.”

“Hallo yourself,” said Pierre, unpin-

60

STAETLING STORIES

ning his badge and laying it on the shelf
below the control-panel. “What is all
this? A conditioned man get into the
tunnels?”

“Muller has disappeared himself,”
said Surkov, handing Pierre the clip-
board from the shelf.

Pierre signed the sheet, took a good
look at himself in the fulldength mir-
ror on the opposite wall, rearranged his
himation, and started to climb the
stairs. Surkov reached for the control-
buttons.

“Hey, come back here !” said the
guard. “Surkov, you never more than
glanced at the picture on the badge.
That man could be anybody at all.”

“No, he could not,” said Surkov. “I
know him; I play bezique with him.
See?” He waved the badge under the
guard’s nose and pushed one of the but-
tons. With a whirr of machinery the
trapdoor began to open.

Bulnes had meant to deposit his
badge and boldly walk out likewise,
trusting to the human weakness that
causes every security routine to become
slipshod with familiarity. Now, how-
ever, that the guard was there, and that
They knew that something had befallen
Surkov’s predecessor, somebody would
be sure to take a sharp look at the
thief’s badge adorning Bulnes’s chiton,
and realize that the face depicted there
did not look at all like that of the man
who wore it.

“Be seeing you,” said Bulnes, and
strolled up the slope of the main tunnel
with ostentatious casuamess.

XIV

^^1 OT until he had gone a good hun-
dred meters did he dare look back. By
then the curvature of the ttinnel hid the
trio around the portal. The upward
slope becam.e more and more pro-
nounced. The damned thing must sure-
ly have risen above ground-level by
now.

At last the passage ended in a stair
with a niche beside it where a man sat

at a control-board, very much like the
portal through which Bulnes had en-
tered the system. Bulnes walked boldly
towards the man, unpinning his badge
as he came. He laid the badge on the
shelf and had his hand out for the
pencil to sign the register even before
the man had picked it up. He signed
“Djon Hwait,” laid down the pencil, and
started up the stairs without a word,
as if fully confident that the gatekeeper
would press the button that opened the
trap in time to keep him from bumping
his head.

The gatekeeper reached for the con-
ti’ol-buttons ; then hesitated. “Hey!”
he said.

Bulnes paused to look back into the
man’s staring eyes. “Well?”

“You forgot your key!”

“Oh. Sorry.” Although Bulnes did
not know what the key was for, he came
back down a few steps with his hand
out.

The man handed him a big bronze
object with a long curved prong, more
like a kind of sickle than a key.

Bulnes said: “Thanks!” and started
back up the steps. The trap opened.
Bulnes paused long enough for it to
reach nearly full gape, then went up,
thrusting his head into the darkness.

At that intant an alarm-bell rang
loudly through the tunnel. “Hey!” said
the gatekeeper again.

This time Bulnes kept on going.

“Come back!” said the gatekeeper,
reaching for a button. With a slight
change in the quality of its whirr the
trapdoor began to close again. A glance
showed Bulnes that the gatekeeper was
fumbling in an open drawer, no doubt
for a gun.

Bulnes hurled the bronze key in his
hand at the head of the gatekeeper. He
was rewarded by seeing the heavy ob-
ject bounce off the man’s balding cra-
nium with a satisfactory bonk! As the
key clattered to the floor and the man
started to fall after it, Bulnes turned,
skipped up the remaining three steps,
and hurled himself away from the open-

THE GLORY

ing. The trapdoor brushed his heels as
he leaped out and closed with a thump
and a click behind him.

B linded by sudden darkness, Bul-
nes cracked his shin on some un-
seen object. Cursing roundabout Span-
ish obscenities under his breath he be-
gan feeling his way. He was in a large
room cluttered with all sorts of furni-
ture and piles of objects, some of metal
and some of cloth. Any minute he ex-
pected the trapdoor to reopen and spill
out men and guns.

As he steered his course among the
obstacles, he at last found a wall and
began feeling his way along it. He cov-
ered one wall, bumped his head against
an unseen bronze statue, made a right-
angle, and continued some meters along
the next wall before he came to a door.
And what a door ! A huge bronze affair,
as wide as he could span with his arms,
and moreover one of a pair.

The door was closed (as he found by
fumbling) by a large bolt on the inside.
He pushed the bolt, and then the door
itself, and the huge doors swung silent-
ly open.

Bulnes found himself facing a row of
small Doric columns interconnected by
a metal railing, and beyond that a
larger row. Ahead, slightly to the
right, the massive form of Athene Pro-
machos towered against the stars,
topped by the triple-crested helmet of
the goddess. He now knew where he
was : on the porch at the West or rear
of the Parthenon. The room in which
he had emerged fi’om the tunnel system
was the storage-room occupying the
rear third of the building.

Bulnes turned, pushed the great doors
closed again, and hurried to the bronze
rail and climbed over. He trotted down
the steps at the end of the Parthenon
and sprinted for the Propylaia, dodging
art-works by starlight. He had almost
reached his goal when from the forest
of columns in front of him a deep voice
with a Scythian accent spoke: “Who
there?”

THAT WAS 61

Damn the Scythians! Bulnes ducked
behind a statue and paused, watching
and listening. Boots stamped on the
marble in front of him, and as his eyes
acquired night-sharpness he thought
that he could see the pointed tip of a
Scythian cap moving about the Propy-
laia.

He turned and headed back the way
he had come, ci'ouching. Any minute
now the back doors of the Parthenon
might fly open to disgorge more ene-
mies.

Right in front of him Bulnes recog-
nized a statue to which Flin had called
his attention when he had shown him
the place. It was Myron’s bronze
Athene, a slender girlish goddess more
to Bulnes’s taste than the beefy colossal
Promachos by Pheidias. This was the
statue over which Flin had enthused so
when he had come upon the workmen,
under the direction of the sculptor, set-
ting it in place. As Bulnes remembered
his colleague’s chatter, his statue was
to be one of a pair. The other statue,
not yet mounted, was to be that of the
satyr Marsyas, capering at the sight of
the flutes that Athene had just throv.m
down because she thought that blowing
them made her look ridiculous.

Marsyas’s base was there even if the
satyr himself was not. With the Scyth-
ian archer coming up behind him and
the puppet-masters in the Parthenon in
front, Bulnes adopted a desperate ex-
pedient that, he hoped, would succeed
by sheer audacity. He shucked his
chiton, wrapped it around the papyrus,
and threw the bundle away. Then he
mounted the pedestal of the statue of
Marsyas, naked, and struck what he
sincerely hoped was a statuesque pose.

T he doors of the Parthenon opened
and a small group of men came out.
By rolling his eyes Bulnes saw that they
were dressed in chitons. They began
to spread out purposefully. One of
them passed not far from Bulnes, but
behind him, and it took all the will-
power Bulnes could summon not to turn

62 STARTLING STORIES

his head.

The voice of the Scythian archer
came again from the direction of the
Propylaia. Somebody blew a whistle,
and the men in the chitons ran back to
the Parthenon. In a matter of seconds
they were all inside, and the doors
closed again.

This time the Scythian came on with
determination, now and "then calling
out: “Who there? Who you? I see
you! Come out, you thief!”

Bulnes stood very still as the fellow
clumped past, not ten meters away. The
policeman continued on his way to the
west end of the Parthenon. He sniffed
around the porch, like a willing but
none too intelligent watchdog, and then
walked back towards the Propylaia.
Bulnes cursed silently. He had hoped
the fellow would at least make a circuit
of the Parthenon, so that while he was
out of sight at the east end Bulnes could
make a break for the Propylaia.

Bulnes waited a few minutes longer.
Heat-lightning flickered on the horizon.

When the Scythian failed to reappear
and the rear doors of the Parthenon
stayed shut, Bulnes slipped down from
his pedestal, donned his chemise, rolled
up his papyrus, and set out for the
north side of the Akropolis. Flin had
said something about stairways down
the mountainside at this point.

Behind him stood the colossus of
Athene Promachos ; on his right a tem-
ple under construction; in front of him
a tangle of walls and hedges marking
off various sacred precincts, and beyond
that the massive wall that went all the
way round the Akropolis. Bulnes bold-
ly pushed through the nearest hedge
and began searching for a way down
from the height. Finding none in this
enclosure — only more shrines and stat-
ues — he climbed a wall and went on to
the next.

It took him an hour of solid, sweat-
soaked searching to find the stairway
he sought, and then it was hidden be-
hind a screen of bushes and architec-
tural froufrou so that none would have

suspected its presence. The stair led
down, not on the outside, but into a
cleft where the whole north side of the
Akropolis had come adrift from the
main body of the rock. The stair sloped
down through the crack between this
colossal slab and the solid part of the
crag.

Bulnes had to feel his way step by
step through nearly total darkness. He
should, he thought, be approaching
those caves on the north side of the
Akropolis that Flin had pointed out.
He had to move, however, at such a
snail-like pace that it took him nearly
half an hour to cover a distance of not
much over a hundred meters.

The stair at last leveled out until he
was shuffling along a path at the base
of the cleft. After many minutes more
of feeling his way he began to get a
glimmer of light from ahead : yellow
lamplight, if he was any judge. There
came a murmur of voices.

N ow and then the cleft came together
so that he had to squeeze through the
gap. The voices grew louder, and Bul-
nes found himself standing at the back
of a cave — no doubt one of those that
he had seen from below. It was ac-
tually a double cave, two caverns hav-
ing a common mouth. The light and
sound were coming from the other,
mostly out of sight around the rocky
bulkhead that divided them.

There was a stir of motion at the
cave entrance, and a man in a long
chiton down to his ankles came around
the bulkhead toward Bulnes. Bulnes
shrank back into his tunnel, sure that
the man must see him, and then thank-
fully remembering that the man would
have just stepped out of the lamplight
and so would not have his eyes adjusted
to the dark.

T he man came, not at Bulnes, but
toward his left. Arriving at the
cave-wall, back where the rocks nar-
rowed, the man pulled aside a curtain
and squeezed into a hole in the rock.
The curtain fell back into place, incon-

THE GLORY THAT WAS 63

spicuous among the other offerings and
objects ranged around the wall of the
cave.

When the man did not reappear, Bul-
nes stole forward toward the cave-en-
trance to where he could see the pro-
ceedings. The other cave contained an
altar before which stood a priest. Some-
thing burned on the altar. On a ledge
that ran along the cliff, level with the
cave-floor stood a row of men : evidently
the suppliants or worshippers.

The priest had his arms up in a ges-
ture of blessing, intoning a prayer of
which Bullies could not catch half the
words. When he had finished he said :
“You may ask, 0 man !”

The first man in line stretched his
arms out, palms up, and called loudly :
“Otototoi, Theoi, Gel Apollon! Apol-
lon!”

When he had repeated the exclama-
tion three times, a hollow inhuman voice
resounded from the back of the cave:
“I am here, 0 man. Speak!”

Bulnes nearly jumped out of his skin
when the voice first sounded, though a
second’s reflection showed him what the
true cause of it must be. The suppliant
continued : “0 Averter of Evil, tell me
what I should do to make my wife con-
ceive?”

“Let her eat three mustard-seeds
while facing east on the night of the
next full moon, at moonrise, and do
thou pay ten drachma! to the priest of
this shrine of Apollo. Next!”

The next man wanted to know if the
trading-voyage in which he had in-
vested eight m.nai would be successful,
and so on. Bulnes grinned, realizing
whither the other priest had been bound
when he disappeared into the hole in
the back of the cave.

This method of milking the Athenian
public also gave Bulnes the genn of an
idea. More than one man could play
Apollo.

He waited until the last inquirer had
received his reply and departed; then
until the two priests had tidied up their
caves, counted their money, put out

their lamps, and departed likewise.
Then he came out of hiding and prowled
along the ledge until he came by de-
grees to the north wing of the Propy-
laia, stole down the steps, and thence
homeward. Poor Wiyem would have to
go supperless, because it would be im-
possible to buy food this late at night.
Anyway Bulnes’s utter exhaustion would
have overcome his normally kindly so-
licitude for his companion.

He staggered into the inn of Podo-
kles, pacified the growling watchdog, and
fell asleep almost before his head struck
his pallet.

' XV

^I^HE SUN was high when the flies
and the noise of Athens at work, finally
awoke Knut Bulnes from his sleep of ex-
haustion. He opened an eye. Then, at
the realization that he was late for his
lecture, he leaped to his feet, feeling
light-headed from lack of food. He
would not even have time to feed poor
Wiyem Flin.

One thing about the Athenian way of
life: there was no tedious routine of
washing and shaving and hunting for a
clean pair of socks in the morning. He
already had on his chiton, and looked
around for. his himation. Then he re-
membered discarding it in the Theseion
last night when invading the tunnels.

Bulnes had picked up enough Athe-
nian cultural attiudes to know that he
could not pass for a philosopher without
a cloak, and would therefore have to
procure one even if he went without
breakfast. He got the address of a
weaver from Podokles (there was no
such thing as a tailor in Athens)' and
half an hour later was hurrying toward
the house of Kallaischros with another
two-by-four-meter rectangle of cloth
swathing his lanky, figure.

Kritias said : “Where have you been ?
We have waited half the morning. What
sort of teacher are you?”

Bulnes made his apologies, adding the
lie that he had had to feed his poor

«4 STARTLING STORIES

friend Philon, rotting away in the
Oikema.

“Speaking of which, my dear sirs,” he
continued, “I believe it was agreed yes-
terday that the noble Kritias should put
up the money to bail out my colleague ?”

Kritias looked blank. “I remember
nothing of the sort. True, you mentioned
some such matter at the Kynosarges,
but we explained that neither of us was
in a position to help you. Is that not so,
Demokritos ?”

“It is not!” said Demokritos. “In-
deed, Kritias, you definitely promised
Bouleus the money. No, do not wink at
me. As this man has dealt justly with
me, I intend to see him dealt justly with
by others.”

Kritias, grumbling, went out and pres-
ently came back with a bag that clinked.
“Hold'out your hands,” he said, and be-
gan counting out silver coins, most of
them massy dekadrachma as big around
as an Imperial silver kraun and a good
deal heavier.

“Four hundred seventy, four hundred
eighty, four hundred eighty-four, four
hundred eighty-eight, four hundred
eighty-nine, four hundred ninety, five
hundred drachmai,” he said. “By the
Dog, have you not brought a bag?”

Bulnes stood with fingers spread, a
great pile of coins filling his cupped
hands and a lot more scattered on the
ground at his feet. He had not before
thought of the disadvantages of the lack
of paper money and checks for large
sums.

“I shall manage,” he said. He laid
the money down and did as he had seen
Athenians do: pulled his belt tighter
and stowed the silver inside the breast
of his chiton, the belt retaining it from
falling through. The total mass weighed
nearly five pounds and was cold against
his midriff.

fy’HREE hours later Bulnes and the

Polemarchos came to the Oikema and
found the jailer. The Polemarchos said :
“Release the prisoner Philon; this man
has gone bail for him.”

The jailer led them around to the side
of the building where Flin was confined.
The prisoner glared silently at them as
the jailer unlocked the fetter on his leg,
then stood up, flicked an insect from his
clothes, and followed them out of the
cell.

The Polemarchos said : “I was going to
schedule your trial for the seventeenth,
but since your friend here says Euri-
pides has promised to withdraw his com-
plaint, I will put it off to the twenty-
fifth. By then we should have heard of
him.”

“Thank you, dear sir,” said Bulnes,
and turned to Flin. “I suppose you’re
hungry enough to — ”

“Hungry!” howled Flin. “You bloody
kosker, have you been trying to starve
me to death? Here I’ve missed three
meals, and the bugs ate me alive, and not
a word from you! I see you’ve got a
new himation ; been having a gay time
chasing the women, I suppose? Can’t
trust you.”

“Shut up,” said Bulnes.

“What? What’s that?”

“I said shut up! Calle sn! Must I
make it plainer?” Bulnes cocked a fist.

Flin subsided, muttering. As they
walked through the market-place Bulnes
told of his adventui’es since he had seen
Flin last. When he came to the place
where Thalia, alias Melite, admitted him
to the house of Euripides, Flin burst
out: “How did she look? What did she
say? Did she show any signs of know-
ing me?”

Bulnes went on with his story, censor-
ing the part where the woman had made
an obvious pass at him. Flin said:
“When can I see her again?”

“You can’t, my dear comrade.”

“What d’you mean, I can’t? We can
use that manuscript as an excuse for
calling on Euripides, can’t we?”

“I mean several things. For one,
you’ve already got yourself in bad with
them by your outburst at the play. For
another, it was just luck that I happened
to see her. These Athenians normally

THE GLORY

keep their women shut'up like a lot of
medieval hidalgos. And for another, it’s
a fifteen-kilometer hike down to Peir-
aieus and back.”

“But — but — dash it all — ”

“Take it easy. It would only upset
you without accomplishing anything, as
she wouldn’t know you. We’d best leave
the Euripideses alone while we figure out
our next move.”

Bulness went on to tell of his noc-
turnal experiences in the tunnels and
on the Akropolis.

“. . . so I went home,” he concluded,
“and I should have got up earlier this
morning except — what’s the matter, my
dear Bil?”

Flin’s mouth was puckered up and
tears ran down his plump cheeks. “I — I
can’t help it. You’ve destroyed my last
hope that this could be the real thing,”
he blubbered, wiping his face with his
cloak. “Now I know it’s a stage-show.
Never mind me; I’m just a useless old
pedant. Sorry I flared up just now, old
thing.”

B ULNES was reminded of a puppy
that, surprised in some misdemean-
or, lies on its back and v/aves all four
paws in an effort to propitiate its gods.
You couldn’t very well kick the beast, no
matter how angry you were. He said:
“The silver plate in Diksen’s head m.ust
be the reason the broadcast wave doesn’t
affect him.”

Flin had recovered his composure. “I
see. What’s this idea of yours?”

“If we could get a message to Perikles,
telling him to appear at the Cave of
Apollo, we might get into that priest-
hole back of the case and interview him.
If he were tipped off to the nature of
this act that’s going on, he might do
something about it.”

“Would he believe you?” asked Flin.
“That’s why we should pose as Ap-
pollo.”

“Mm. The real Perikles was a skej)-
tical sort of blighter. And what’d you
mean by ‘we’ ? You don’t think I’ll risk
my neck on any such stunt, do you?”

THAT WAS 65

“Yes, I do. If we can convince him
that he and all the other pseudo-Greeks
are being used as puppets in a game,
maybe he’ll dig into the tunnels and
break up the show.”

“That part’s all right,, but why must
I be in on it? You’re a venturesome
sort of chap, but I’m no ruddy good at
playing Red Indian, you know.”

“The language, my dear fellow,” said
Bulnes v/ith elaborate patience. “How
impressed d’you think he’d be by an Ap-
pollo who talked broken Greek with a
Spanish-English accent ?”

“Well I’m not going,” said Flin, tight-
ening his lips.

“Why not?”

“If you must know. I’m terrified.”
“No es verdad?” said Bulnes, with an
ominous tilt to his eyebrows. “I think
you will. Unless you prefer to go back
to the Oikema, while I return the bail-
money to Kritias . . .”

“Oy! You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I? Try me and see.”

“Oh, damn and blast!” Flin stamped
his foot. “Why do you always get the
better of me? A dashed tyrant, that’s
what you are.”

“Thank you, dear comrade. Let’s fin-
ish up here; you’ll have to write that
letter for me.”

“When were you thinking of staging
this interview?” inquired Flin.

“Tonight if possible. I don’t wish to
give Perikles time to devise a trap for
us.”

Two hours later, much improved by a
meal, Bulnes and Flin got to work upon
their letter. Using the manuscript of
Euripides as a guide to penmanship,
Flin wrote:

Phoibos Apollon to Perikles Xan-
thippou of Cholargos, Strategos
Dekatos Autos of the City of
Athenai:

If you will present yourself alone
at the Cave of Apollo tonight, the
tenth of Elaphebolion, two hours
after sunset, having taken meas-
ures to insure that our conversa-

66 STARTLING STORIES

tions shall not he interrupted, you
shall hear matters of grave import
to yourself and to the state.

Flin said: “I can’t guarantee that’ll
fetch him. It looks too much like an
attempt to get him alone for abduction
or murder.”

“Oh, he’ll have friends or slaves with-
in call. Now let’s get Diksen and case
the joint, as they say in America.”

Diksen, once awakened, was full of en-
thusiasm for the scheme. He walked
them along the base of the Akropolis,
below the statues of the Tribal Heroes,
and pointed out significant features :

“That split in the rock runs back to
another cave — see that dark spot? —
they call the Aglaurion after some dame
in their cockeyed religion. There’s two
stairs going up from the bottom of the
split to the top, one at the Aglaurion
end and one in the middle. And see that
path going up to the wall? Wliere the
old guy is sitting with the goats?” He
pointed ahead to the eastern part of the
north side of the hill. “"Well, there’s a
hole in the angle of the wall and an-
other stair going up to the top. These
stairs ain’t really secret — I went through
’em all when my beat was up there — but
the priests try to keep the common
people out.”

The next task was the delivery of the
letter. They hiked over to the house of
Perikles, and Bulnes made friends with
a little girl playing naked in the filth
of the street and bribed her with a cop-
per to deliver it. He and Flin watched
from around the nearest corner until
they saw the letter handed to the porter.

T hey ate early and went up to the
Akropolis before sunset, when the
main crowds were beginning to come
down. They turned left as they issued
from the Propylaia and walked to the
inclosures along the north side. To Bul-
nes the area looked quite different by
daylight, so that it took him some time
to identify the route he had followed
the night before.

When he finally found it they waited
until nobody seemed to be looking and
then hid among the shrubbery. It proved
easy — too easy, Bulnes feared. After
the sun had set, a couple of Scythians
went by shooing the remaining visitors
off the Akropolis. However, they made
no effort to beat the bushes for lurkers.

The evening hush came over the area.
A pair of priests went by, talking in low
tones about money.

“Follow me,” said Bulnes, and led the
way crouching to the head of the stair
down into the cleft.

Although the sky overhead was still
light, the cleft was so dark that Bulnes
had to feel his way as on the previous
night. At the bottom of the stair he led
Flin along the rough mass of stones and
earth that filled the bottom of the cleft,
until they reached the Cave of Pan.

“Here we wait,” said Bulnes.

As the light dimmed, footsteps sound-
ed in the adjacent Cave of Appollo, and
the voice of a priest: “No, my son, the
god will not present himself tonight.
Come back tomorrow with your ques-
tions.” Then, as the footsteps of the
inquirer receded along the ledge, the
same voice spoke again : “It is plain rob-
bery and oppression that Perikles should
ask exclusive use of the shrine tonight.
Why can he not take his turn like any
other citizen? That is your so-called
democracy !”

“Will the god give him a message?”
said another sacerdotal voice.

“After he has cost us two or three
mnai in fees? Not this embodiment of
the god!”

“We might give him something short
and ambiguous, as they do at Delphi.
You remember when Kroisos the Lydian
king asked whether he should — ”

“Ea! Since he has had so little con-
sideration for us, he can stand there all
night without answer for all of me.
‘Message of importance to the state,’
forsooth!”

The conversation wandered off into
the subject of the love-lives of the two
priests, and while Bulnes thought it

THE GLORY

might have been of interest to students
of abnormal psychology it had no bear-
ing on his present mission. The conver-
sation was punctuated by a sharp tap-
ping which Bulnes identified as the im-
pact of a flint against a piece of steel
or pyrites, and presently there was the
faint crackling of the altar fire and the
smell of incense.

At last there came more footsteps
along the ledge, and the priests’ voices,
oily with cordiality: “Rejoice, my dear
Perikles !’’

“Rejoice,” said a new voice.

“This is an honor; it has been years
since you visited our shrine. The Ruler
of the Seasons will be pleased.”

“I daresay. But sftice the Bright
One specifically asked me to present my-
self alone, would you gentlemen mind

B ulnes was sure he had heard that
voice before. It was a staccato voice,
speaking in short phrases and biting off
the ends of its sentences with a snap.
Bulnes remarked:

“That jerky voice doesn’t sound to me
like a great orator.”

“That’s Perikles all right,” whispered
Flin. “That’s how the real one was.”

“Come on,” murmured Bulnes, and
crept toward the secret entrance to the
priest-hole. He thrust the curtain aside
and slunk into the tunnel until he
reached the opening behind the altar.

The head priest was saying: “. . . but
my dear, dear Perikles, it would be
against all precedent. The Health-Giver
would be offended if we absented our-
selves ...”

There was a crackle of papyrus 'and
the voice of Perikles: “There you are;
see? I do not know what this means,
but I intend to find out. Will you go, or
must ! call for help in removing you?”

“Oh, we go, we go. But do not say we
failed to warn you.”

“Not that way; this way. I do not
care to be deceived by human voices is-
suing from holes in this rabbit-warren.”
Bulnes looked through the funnel-

THAT WAS 67

shaped hole into the Cave of Apollo.
Beyond the altar stood two priests, their
backs more or less to Bulnes, and be-
yond them Perikles. All Bulness could
see through the smoke of the altar-fire
was a neatly-trimmed gray beard and a
himation.

The priests went out and turned left
along the ledge. Perikles came forward
towards the altar and called sharply:
“Phoibos Apollon, if it indeed be you,
I have come as you requested. Have
you a message for me?”

“Go ahead,” whispered Bulnes, push-
ing Flin into the place behind the speak-
ing-hole.

Flin said : “0 Perikles, it is indeed the
God of the Silver Bow. You and all your
people have been subjected to a mon-
strous deception, and it is time this im-
posture were unmasked.”

“How so, 0 god?”

“You are not Perikles Xanthippou, nor
are the other Hellenes the persons they
think they are. The true Perikles lived
three thousand years ago. You are a
man who has been seized by the world-
rulers, and by their science caused to be-
lieve that you are indeed this ancient
Perikles, and the other Hellenes have
been subjected to the same deception.”

“Indeed ?” Perikles took the news, Bul-
nes thought, with unwonted calm.

“Just so. If you wish proof you have
but to order your people to dig down into
the floor of the Parthenon chamber of
the New Hekatompedon, and below the
altar of Theseus in the Theseion, to dis-
cover the tunnels the servants of the
world-rulers use for — ”

Flin broke off and jerked back from
the orifice. Bulnes took a quick look
through the hole in time to see the man
called Perikles coming around the altar
and drawing a pistol from his draperies.
In that second the altar-fire blazed up,
and by its light Bulnes recognized, de-
spite the full beard, the face he had
manipulated scores of times in making
up the dummy for the next issue of
Trends —

The face of Vasil Hohnsol-Romano,

6g

STARTLING STORIES

ninth of the name, and Emperor of the
Earth.

XVI

ULNES tumbled back in his turn.
As he did so, the piercing crack of a
shot smote his ears and fragments of
rock stung his face. Again and again
came the crack of the gun mingling with
the crash of explosive bullets, and each
time the flash lit up the cloud of rock-
dust that filled the priest-hole as the ex-
plosions pulverized the rock in and
around the orifice. A hit from one of
those little pellets would blow a man to
pieces.

He began crawling after Flin towards
the curtained eiitrance. “Caray!” he
muttered. “What the hell ?”

“He’s coming around this way!”
quavered Flin. “Say— look there!”

Bulnes craned his neck backwards.
The shooting had stopped and the
heavier dust-particles were settling. By
the fugitive light of the altar-fire,
through the now enlarged orifice, Bul-
nes observed that the explosions had
broken away a concealed door at the
rear of the priest-hole. The camouflage
had consisted of a plaster coating
modeled and painted to look like the sur-
rounding rock, and now its pallid frac-
tures and chicken-wire reinforcing were
plainly visible.

Bulnes heard footsteps in the Cave of
Pan from which they had come. Wher-
ever it led, the newly revealed door
seemed to offer more safety than a cave
containing an armed and homicidally
inclined emperor. Bulnes scurried back
into the hole. The explosions had
smashed the bracing that held the lock,
so that a good heave opened the door.
Bulnes scooted through, Flin after him.

“Close it!” hissed Bulnes.

As the door closed they were again
plunged into darkness. Not complete,
however. As his pupils dilated, Bulnes
became aware of a row of tiny spots
of softly glowing light along the roof
of the tunnel in which they found them-

selves. These were ordinary radioactive
night-lights of the sort sold by that
American firm. Western House Electric
or whatever it was. Gradually his vision
sharpened until he could dimly see the
floor and walls as well.

He proceeded, crouching so as not to
hit his head on the roof, until the tunnel
ended in a T-intersection. The new
tunnel, at right angles to the old, was
somewhat higher and carried a mass of
cables along its roof.

Bulnes turned left at hazard and fol-
lowed the lights of this tunnel for per-
haps a couple of hundred meters. It
dipped down and did a couple of dog-
legs, and then ended with a door that
reminded him of the pressure-doors
through watertight bulkheads on large
ships.

On the wall beside the door was a
plate in which was mounted a push-
button. Below the button was a legend
illuminated by a brighter night-light.
The legend instructed the wayfarer in
English to push the button to summon
a guard to open the door and admit him
to the tunnel-system.

Bulnes said: “I don’t think we’d bet-
ter do that. Let’s try the other direc-
tion.”

They retraced their steps to the tun-
nel leading to the Cave of Apollo, but
continued straight on instead of turn-
ing. Bulnes, puffing up the slope, said :
“We know a couple of things now: not
only that Perikles is really Vasil the
Ninth, but that he’s an unconditioned
man like us and like Diksen.”

“How d’you know that?”

“Would he be shooting a pistol other-
wise? Of course he doesn’t believe in
Apollo, and as soon as he heard your
voice he guessed that another uncondi-
tioned man was talking to him from
hiding.”

“What the deuce d’yOu suppose he’s
doing? Putting on this whole Greek
thing as a sort of grandiose charade to
satisfy his vanity?”

Bulnes shrugged in the gloom. “We’ll
find out sooner or later. You know he

THE GLORY

considers himself a reincarnation of
Perikles; maybe he has some mystical
idea of re-living his former life. It’s
evident he doesn’t want us to give him
away.”

“Perhaps so, but the bustard needn’t
try to murder us on sight. I say, what’s
this?”

They had come to the end of the tun-
nel. 'There were no outlets except
straight up. The cables overhead led up,
and so did a ladder, into a dimly-lit cav-
ernousness above.

B L'LNES craned his neck, peering up,
then started to climb. He soon found
himself squirm.ing through a jungle of
struts and cross-braces, lit by a whole
constellation of night-lights. Around
him rose an irregular structure of dark-
greenish metal.

Flin said; “By Gad, Knut, I know
where we are!”

“Wliere?”

“Inside Athene Promachos !”

“Really? Let’s hope we don’t give
the dear lady indigestion. Where do
those cables go?”

Following the zigzag course of the
ladder, Bulnes finally reached a point
that he judged to be somewhere on a
level with the solar plexus of the god-
dess. From there, looking up, he could
see where the cables ended in a forest of
metal antennae, something like radar an-
tennae: clusters of rods and plates ar-
ranged in patterns.

“There they are,” he said. ‘

“There are what? Oh, those things.”
Flin fell silent. After puckering his,
mouth with thought for some seconds
he said : “Of course I don’t know a ruddy
thing about electricity, Knut, but I
thought radio and radar antennae had
to be out in the open ; that a lot of metal
around them would smother the rays or
whatever it is they send ouL”

“That’s true on the electromagnetic
spectrum, but not on the gravito-mag-
netic. You know, the stuff the World
Government scientists were playing with
a couple of decades ago?”

THAT WAS 69

“No.”

“Well, they were gravito-magnetics.
I’m not a scientist myself, but Trends
has a tickler-file on the subject, and once
every few years we try to find some-
thing out about it. There was a lot of
activity, as I said, with prophecies of
the wonderful things it would do for us,
and then it dropped out of sight. As
far as Trends knows, not a single scien-
tist is interested in it any more.”

“So you think they’ve been developing
this secretly?”

“It looks that way.”

“Why?” asked Flin.

“I’m just guessing, but I suspect it’s
what keeps all our pseudo-Greeks under -
control.”

Flin looked speculatively at the
cables. “If we could cut through those,
we’d queer the whole pitch at once.”

Bulnes shook his head. “Probably
electrocute ourselves in the process, and
they’re armored so it would take days
even with a modern hack-saw. It would
be more to the point to find the master
switch that turns off the power. Let’s
see : there ought to be a door in the
lady’s skirts at street-level . . . here we
are. Get ready to slip out quietly ...”

Presently the shadowy figures of Bul-
nes and Flin emerged from the colossus
and hurried toward the northeast corner
of the Akropolis, in seach of the stair-
way that led to the base of the wall and
the path down the hillside that Diksen
had shown them that afternoon.

XVII

SOUND awakened Knut Bulnes.
As he opened his eyes the first thing he
saw was a pair of Scythian trousers, sur-
mounted by a Scythian jacket and, above
that, the broad face of Roi Diksen. The
American had evidently just stepped
into the doi-mitory of the inn of Po-
dokles. When he saw that Bulnes was
awake he said : “Hey, Mr. Bulnes, how’d
it go off, huh? I was scared — ”

“Shut up, 0 barbarian!” growled one
of Podokles’s other guests. “I sleep.”

70 STARTLING STORIES

“We’d better go out,” said Bulnes, and
shook Flin awake.

They wrapped their himations about
them and issued into the street. The
sky was pale in the East, though the sun
had not yet risen. Bulnes shivered a
little, in the pre-dawn cold.

Diksen said : “Now what the hell hap-
pened? I’m patrolling my beat in the
Kerameikos, see, and I hear a racket
from the Akropolis, and this morning
the boys on the force is talking about
how the big-shot went to the Cave of
Apollo and the god shot off a couple of
thunderbolts to show he was the real
McCoy. On account of I know better,
I was expecting maybe as how you guys
had gotten plugged.”

Bulnes told their story.

“The Emp!” exclaimed Diksen, his
wide-open features taking on a comical
look of craft. “You know what? He’s
up to something!”

“Your gift for understatement,” said
Bulnes, “is magnificent.”

“Oh, but that ain’t all! Perikles
passed out an order to begin arms-in-
spection for the militia, a tribe at a time.
So the whole Erechtheis tribe is gonna
parade outside the Dipylon Gate this
A. M., tv/o hours after sunrise. Then
tom.orrow it’s the turn of Aigeis.”

“Can we watch?” asked Bulnes.

“I dunno why not. Looky, let me
catch a litle sleep and I’ll meet you out
there tivo hours from nov/.”

“But your lecture-appointment!” said
Flin. to Bulnes.

“You, my dear friend, will take care
of that.”

“But really, you know, I ought not to
take it on impromptu — ”

“Carajo! You helped me prepare the
lecture, and you can have the fun of try-
ing to remxernber the subjunctive aorist
of ‘to be’ for a change.”

“Oh. very well,” grumbled Flin. . . .

At the appointed time Bulnes headed
for the Dipylon Gate. As he slopped
through the dirt he became av/are of
great numbers of Athenians making in
the same direction, armed for battle.

Every one of them carried a round shield
with a big A painted upon it, and a light
six-foot pike, and wore a crested helmet.
Most also wore a bronze cuirass (some-
times studded leather) , a kilt of studded
leather straps, and bronze greaves. As
the throng funnelled toward the gate,
remarks flew: “Oi! Stop pushing!”
“Hurry up, Andokides, or I will kick your
fanny.” “What is the meaning of . . .”
“Where have you been, 0 Strymon?”
“. . . I am sure he stole it from the
people, but you know juries . . .” “May-
be there will be war after all . . .”
“. . . I told him, if you think you can
cheat Hegias and get away with . . .”

Bulnes brooded a bit on the predica-
ment of himself and Flin and Diksen.
His intentions were still to destroy this
pseudo-Periklean regime — in order, not
only to enable himself and the others to
escape, but also to end the strange men-
tal bondage in which Vasil’s gravito-
magnetic conditioner held the Greeks.

But then the unsettling thought oc-
curred to Bulnes that perhaps Perikles
had indeed discovered a golden-age for-
mula, and that by disrupting the experi-
ment, he, Bulnes, was depriving mankind
of universal happiness. But his tough,
proud, individualistic spirit asserted it-
self. Happiness purchased at the price
of suppressing one’s own memories and
personality, in order to assume the
largely suppositious ones of some his-
torical character, was not worth the cost.

O UTSIDE the Dipylon Gate men were
falling into ranks. Scythians were
directing spectators to one end of the
formation, and Bulnes let himself be
shooed along v/ith the rest. From there
he could look down the front rank — a
somewhat serpentine and irregular one,
but brave in bronze and iron. In front
of the militiamen stood a small clump of
men among whom Bulnes could make
out the handsomely bearded figure of
Perikles-Vasil with a Corinthian helmet
pushed back on his head so that his face
showed.

It took the hoplites an interminable

THE GLORY

time to get squared away, for this force
seemed weak in officer organization and
every soldier argued all the time at the
top of his lungs. Finally they shook
down into hundred-man companies, and
Perikles called:

“Attention ! Men of the tribe of
Erechtheis stand upright. We will pass
among you to see that all weapons and
defenses are in good condition.”

He began moving slowly towards
where Bulnes stood. Bulnes experienced
a moment of panic before he remem-
bered that, happily, Perikles had not
gotten a good look at his face the night
before. Perikles, followed by the other
men of his group, arrived at the hither
end of the front rank of the hoplitai.
He stood there for a long time, looking
down the line and sometimes exchang-
ing a w’ord with the other officials : “Be-
hold those potbellies! We shall have to
institute some special exercise to reduce
them . . .”

His manner was that of one who has
all the time in the world; or, Bulnes
thought, one who was deliberately kill-
ing time.

“Let us go, Perikles,” said one of the
officials at last. “We cannot keep them
standing in the sun all morning.”

Slowly, perhaps reluctantly, Perikles
moved down the line, stopping for a long
close look at each militiaman. Bulnes
heard him say to the second man in the
line:

“That cracked old shield will never
save you from the spears of the enemy.
See that you have a new one at the next
muster . . .”

“Hey, Mr. Bulnes!” came a stage-
whisper from behind, and there stood
Diksen. “Sorry, but I guess I kinda
overslept. How’s it going ?”

“At this rate,” said Bulnes, “the in-
spection will take all day.”

They watched as the figures of Peri-
kles and his colleagues dwindled with
distance and their voices became inaud-
ible.

Then, suddenly, it happened.

Every soldier gave a jerk, a start, or

THAT WAS 71

a shudder. Spears toppled right and
left as their holders let go of them to
turn and stare in amazement at those
around them. There was a clatter of
dropped shields; men felt their beards
and patted their cuirasses. And from
the armed mass came a rising murmur
of sound. Bulnes, listening, caught
sentences in Modern Greek, and some in
other languages: “Where am I?”

“What’s this damn thing on my head ?
A cuspidor?”

“I don’t get it! I’m punching the
cash-register in my restaurant, and
next minute I’m out here with a man-
hole cover on my arm . . .”

A few, taken by panic, ran off across
the plain; the rest babbled questions,
louder and louder until the din be-
came deafening. Perikles stepped back
from the line and shouted : “All those
who understand me, step this way !”

T he confusion, however, became
more chaotic* with each second. A
number of men did step towards Peri-
kles, but not, apparently, because they
understood his Attic. Instead, they
menaced him with their spears and
yelled demands for an explanation.

Now the crowd around Bulnes re-
acted, too. There were murmurs of :
“Madness!” “Witchcraft!” “The gods
have smitten us!” “They speak in
strange tongues !” “Flee for your lives !”

Then, when it looked as though any-
thing might happen, the hoplitai started
again, stared around wildly as they had
done at the beginning, and began
wandering back to their places in line
and picking up their discarded equip-
ment, asking each other; “What hap-
pened?” “What happened?”

“Get back in formation!” cried Peri-
kles. “We will carry on the inspection.”

And, his companions still following
him, he walked back to where he had
been at the moment of the outburst and
continued down the line. Now, however,
he walked rapidly, giving each man
scarcely a glance. In a few minutes it
was all over and the citizens, dismissed,

72 STARTLING STORIES

’■A'ere streaming back to the city, still
asking questions of each other and of
passersby.

“Well!” said Diksen. “What do you
think of that?”

Bulnes frowned. “It looks to me as
though those antennae inside Athene
Promachos must control each of these
Greeks individually; each is on a dif-
ferent wave-length, as it were. I sup-
pose his people underground have a
card-file of all the Greeks, and he told
them to check off all the male citizens
of the tribe of Erechtheis, and then at
a predetermined time to throw the
switches that controlled them. He must
have hoped to catch one or more un-
conditioned men by watching to see
who didn’t start capering and asking
where he was.”

“I get cha. Don’t seem to me as how
that’d work, though ; too many people
all yacking away at once.”

“Right. Don’t be surprised if you
hear the inspections of the other tribes
have been called off.”

The5'^ picked up Flin at the house of
Kallaischros and wended their way to
the Agora to buy their lunch. Flin,
eating an omlet wrapped in leaves,
listened to the account of the morning’s
adventure.

“He’s determined to uncover the un-
conditioned men at all costs,” he com-
mented. “We’d jolly well better do
something. By the way, Kritias says a
couple of his friends want to join our
course.”

“Splendid, my dear fellow,” said Bul-
nes. “We shall be successful in spite of
ourselves.”

“There’s one catch, though : The
crowd’s getting too large for the house
of Kallaischros. We shall have to move
out.”

“The Agora’s too noisy for my taste,”
said Bulnes, glancing over to where
Sokrates, losing his himation with the
violence of his gestures, was arguing:
“. . . but my dear Antiphon, if everyone
takes the view that morality is simply
a matter of who can think up the clever-

est arguments to support his interests,
what becomes of public virtue? How
long will such a state endure ?”

Bulnes added : “How about one of
the gymnasia?”

“It would have to be the Kynosarges,”
said Flin, “since the others don’t admit
non-citizens. But vfhat shall we do
about the Emp? I have no doubt they
can locate us eventually. How about
another attemipt to warn Perikles of
the accusation impending against his
friends, Pheidias and the rest?”

B ulnes said: “You forget, my dear
Bil, we’re not trying to prop up the
Periklean regime; we’re trying to tear
it down.”

“By Jove, you’re right. But isn’t it
awful? To have to work for the destruc-
tion of a golden age, even a synthetic
one like this?” Flin asked Diksen : “Any
chance of fomenting an insurrection
among your fellow-gendarmes?”
“Huh?”

“He means,” said Bulnes, “could you
stir up the rest of the Scythians to
revolt?”

“Dunno. Doubt it. It’s funny about
slaves here in Athens. Where I come
from everybody’s as good as everybody
else, and usually better, and if a char-
acter says to you ‘Slave, do this or that,’
you kick his teeth down his throat. But
these gooks seem to expect it. Besides,
the Scythian cops got a good deal. They
can keep women on the side, and when
they get too old for work the commis-
sioners turn ’em loose.” He yawned
prodigiously. “ ’Scuse me, fellas, I gotta
get back to barracks to catch some sleep.
You forget I’m up all night.”

He left. Flin said : “Hadn’t we better
see if Euripides has sent his letter to
the Poleniarchos yet?”

To his surprise, Bulnes learned that
the letter in question had been delivered
to the Polemarchos by a slave that very
morning. “Kephisophon must have re-
membered to remind him,” said Bulnes.
“My dear sir, is my friend novf a free
man again?”

THE GLORY THAT WAS 73

“Yes,” said the magistrate. “If you
will wait, I will send a slave to the
treasury to fetch your bail money. Have
you two found a patron yet?”

“No,” said Bulnes. “We approached
the good Sokrates, but he — uh— could
not see his way clear.”

“That subversive agitator, always
unsettling our young men by question-
ing the wisdom of our ancestors ! It is
just as well for you that he refused.
However, be advised to find a patron
soon, as you will be entered upon the
tax-rolls in any case and you might as
well have the legal standing of a reg-
istered metoikos.”

The money came, and Bulnes and
Flin departed to return it to Kritias.

:j< ^ ^

Late that afternoon they were sitting
in the inn of Podokles and working up
the next few days’ lectures when Dro-
mon the slave came in.

“Sirs,” he said, “a message from
my master Sokrates : Perikles is giving
a dinner and symposium tonight at his
house, to which he has invited all the
philosophers .of Athens. He asked my
master to round up any he, Perikles,
might be unacquainted with, wherefore
Sokrates sent me to seek you men of
Tartessos.”

Bulnes exchanged looks with Flin,
asking: “What’s this?”

Flin said : “That’s out of character.
The real Perikles wasn’t a very sociable
chap ; seldom entertained and seldom
appeared in public except on state
business. D’you think he’ll try to smoke
us out the way he did the militia this
morning?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, but being
forewarned we should be able to cope
with it.”

“You mean when the others go off
their rails we do likewise?”

“Precisely.”

“Dash it all, it seems like taking a
frightful risk. Why don’t you go and
leave me?”

“What did you say?” said Bulnes,
glowering.

“But — I mean— you could say I had
a headache . . .”

“It’d be an even worse risk to refuse.
You’re going. Dromon, what do we do
now?”

“If you will follow me to the Agora,
my master will lead you to the house
of Perikles.”

XVIII

^^OKRATES greeted them cordially
at the Agora ; he evidently could not
stay angry long with anybody who
looked like a promising antagonist in an
argument. Bulnes had tactfully worked
the philosopher around to the subject of
becoming their prostates when they
arrived at the house of Perikles.

The Strategos greeted them with
grave cordiality inside the door. Bulnes
took a sharp look at the Athenian
statesman this time. There was no
doubt that the man was the Emperor.
Meanwhile Perikles-Vasil was looking
just as keenly at Bulnes. He said, in
the manner of one making polite con-
versation :

“It is interesting to meet one of the
fabled Tartessians. Are j'ou of the race
of the Keltoi, who are said to inhabit
the v/esternmost parts of Europe?”

“No, Perikles,” Flin spoke up. “We
are the autochthones of Iberia, and
cultivated the arts and sciences there
centuries before the coming of the
barbarous Kelts.”

“Your name is Philon, my dear sir?”
said Perikles.

As Perikles turned his head, Bulnes
noticed the remarkable length of his
skull, which projected backward to a
conspicuous degree. Had he made a mis-
take after all? Vasil IX had no such
bulge.

Within the andronitis Bulnes found
all the philosophers he had already met
— Protagoras, Demokritos, Anaxagoras,
and Meton — and several others he did
not know. Nobody bothered with in-

74 STARTLING STORIES

troductions ; all were too busy wagging
their pointed beards in -converse. Meton,
for instance, was. explaining his pro-
posed calendar-reform and railing at
the stupidity of the masses who insisted
on using an obsolete and irrational
system of time-reckoning from sheer
force of habit.

Flin said : “That one with the squint
is Diogenes.”

“The old fellow who lived in a bar-
rel?”

“No, you’re thinking of the Cynic
philosopher, who wouldn’t be born yet.
This is a scientist. And that’s Prodikos,
the one with the theories about the
nature of myth, just back from Italy

Pi’odikos was telling Protagoras:
“. . . and I stopped at Thourioi and saw
Herodotos.”

“How is the old fellow?”

“Still amazingly vigorous; working
on a History of Assyria, and hopes to
visit Athens next year . . .”

Anaxagoras was upbraiding young
Demokritos, who tried to hide behind a
pillar: “. . . so you come all the way
from Abdera to study philosophy, and
never think to seek out poor old Anax-
agoras? What a heedless generation it
is . . .” Demokritos was stammering
apologies.

“Dinner, gentlemen,” said Perikles,
and the crowd padded barefoot into the
andron.

Bulnes murmured to Flin: “I could
surely use a double martini!”

He found himself paired with Anti-
phon the sophist, a youngish man about
the age of Demokritos. Flin reclined
on the next couch. A slave appeared
with a towel and a basin and began to,
wash Bulnes’s feet.

Antiphon looked at Bulnes with some-
thing like a sneer and said : “So Peri-
kles, far from giving me the place of
honor, puts me with a foreigner ! That
shows his true opinion of the better
sort of people. No offense meant to
you, my good man; after all, you cannot
help where you were born.”

T he interior of the house of Perikles
was little different from the other
houses Bulnes had seen ; less sumptuous
than that of Kallaischros, but perhaps
a little neater and roomier than Meton’s.
A young woman who, Bulnes thought,
would have been better for a good wash,
sat on a stool and tweetled away mourn-
fully on a thing like a clarinet. The
monotonous little tune reminded Bulnes
of a Gregorian chant.

Antiphon, his mouth full of endives,
said : “Man of Tartessos, do not judge
all Athenian banquets by this one. Our
Long-Pate Zeus is really too serious-
minded for party-giving. You should
attend one of those of our livelier
spirits, like the young Alkibiades . . .”

As the fare was spare and simple the
actual eating did not take long. The
clatter of argument among the philos-
ophers almost drowned out the music
of the aulos.

Perikles took a last bite of fig, cleared
his throat, and said : “Gentlemen, be-
fore we begin the symposium, may I
bring Aspasia in to listen?”

When nobody objected, Perikles
spoke to a slave who went out. Anti-
phon said to Bulnes behind his hand:
“That is one advantage of a concubine ;
you cannot decently bring a legal wife
into such a gathering.”

Aspasia swept in: a tall handsome
woman of about Bulnes’s own age.
“Gentlemen !” she said. “It is most kind
of you to permit me . . .” She sat on
a chair instead of reclining.

Antiphon said : “Wait till they get
under way; she will tie some of their
fine theories into knots. Woman though
she be, the Milesian has a shrewd and
penetrating wit.”

A pair of slaves lugged in three big
bowls and set them on the floor in the
middle of the horseshoe in which the
couches were arranged, while others
carried out the teetery little tables on
which the food had been served. Bulnes,
watching this process, felt his chiton
twitched from Isehind, and there stood
a slave holding out a fistful of straws.

THE GLORY

Taken aback for an instant, he glanced
around, observing that several others
had each drawn one. He drew one also.

Perikles presently announced : “The
short straw has been drawn by the good
Archelaos, who is hereby appointed
Master of Ceremonies. Do you take
command, 0 Archelaos.”

The graybeard across the horseshoe
from Bulnes rose and com,manded :
“Mix the wine in the proportion of two
to one.”

Bulnes thanked his stars that the lot
had not fallen upon him in his igno-
rance. As the slaves poured the contents
of one wine- jar and two water- jars into
the/ big bowls, Antiphon said : “We
should have Kratinos the comedy-writer
in charge. He would mix one-to-one and
then drink half a krater himself.”

A rchelaos scooped some of the

diluted wine out of one of the bowls
with a ladle, said something about “ . . .
to the Olympian gods,” and poured the
wine on the floor. He poured two other
libations : “To the Heroes,” and “To
Zeus the' Savior,” and sprinkled incense
on the altar.

Bulnes realized that those about him
were singing to the tune of the clarinet.
He listened, trying to catch the words :
“In mighty flagons hither bring
The deep-red blood of many a vine
That we may largely quaff and sing
The praises of the'god of wine.”
“Now,” said Archelaos, “the subject
for this evening will be the origin of
the universe.”

Antiphon emitted a groan, echoed by
several others of the company. “I knew
it!” moaned the sophist. “One might as
well die under Spartan spears as ex-
pire of boredom. The Anaxagoras will
go on all night about his theory of
primal seeds.”

Archelaos frowned at Antiphon and
continued: “I shall first call upon our
young friend from Abdera. Speak, 0
Demokritos !”

Demokritos turned a bright red above
his fuzzy beard. “I — uh — er — I do not

THAT WAS 75

really know — ah — uh — I am unworthy
— uh — I pray, do not — ”

“Come, come, have either cape or
cloak,” said Archelaos.

Demokritos smiled nervously. “Well
—ah — Leukippos taught me that first
there were atoms and the void, and — uh
— after all I am nobody compared to the
distinguished men here — but as these
atoms fell through the void, we think —
ah — the differences in their weights
would cause some to fall faster than
others, thus setting up eddies — uh — er
— and these eddies condensed into solid
particles — ”

While Demokritos stumbled along, in
obvious torment from embarrassment,
Bulnes shot a glance at Perikles. The
latter was looking at Demokritos with a
faint and not unsympathetic smile ; then
down again to a piece of papyrus in his
hand. Could that, Bulnes wondered, con-
tain a list of those present, so that Peri-
kles-Vasil could check them against the
card-files of his pseudo-Greeks?

“I say, Knut ! Watch Meton !” It was
Flin’s whisper from the next couch.

Bulnes saw that the astronomer was
undergoing the same process that he
had observed on the drill-field that
morning. He swung his feet down from
his couch and sat up, staring wildly; he
exclaimed in Romaic: “Where am I?
What is ail this? Are you people pre-
tending to be ancient Greeks, or what?”

T^EMOKRITOS broke off, staring like
^ the rest. Meton started to rise, then
looked down as his sole garment, an
unpinned chiton thrown carelessly
around his body, began to fall to the
floor. Meton clutched wildly.

Antiphon said : “By Herakles, that is
the same seizure that is said to have
smitten the soldiers on the drill-field
this morning! Is Athens undergoing an
epidemic of universal madness?”

“Damn it!” cried Meton. “Say some-
thing ! Doesn’t anybody understand
me?”

Then Meton shuddered again, looked
around a little foolishly, and resumed

76 STARTLING STORIES

his couch.

Anaxagoras cried : “What ails you, 0
Meton?”

“Why ?” said Meton in Classical Attic.
“What do you mean? I had a slight
feeling of dizziness just now and found
myself standing, but now I feel perfect-
ly normal.”

“Do you not remember speaking gib-
berish?” asked Sokrates.

“Not at all. What is all this? Are
you men jesting with me?”

Bulnes leaned toward Flin and mur-
mured in English : “Perikles must have
made arrangements to turn off the
radiations for his guests one at a time,
in a predetermined order.”

“Oh-oh !” said Flin. “I knew we were
ruddy fools to come. Let's get jolly well
out of here!”

“Not yet. A few more like that will
break up the party anyway, and we
don’t want to look conspicuous.”

Aspasia said: “Go on, dear Demokri-
tos. You were doing splendidly!”

The interruption, however, had so un-
strung that shy young man that he was
unable to get anything out but er’s and
ah’s. At last Archelaos said: “We will
come back to you, 0 Demokritos. Mean-
while the Sokrates, having been declared
by the oracle to be the wisest man in
Athens, will perhaps favor us with a
few words on this profound subject?”

“It is notorious that I am the stupid-
est man in Athens,” said Sokrates, “or I
should not find it necessarjr to ask so
many questions. As for the origin of
the universe, I do not think that a ques-
tion of much importance, since what-
ever caused it, it happened long ago,
and the problems of leading a good and
virtuous life are more pressing.

“However, since you wish it, I will
tell you a story I have heard from my
Pythagorean friends. They argue thus :
as all corporeal things are generated,
so much the cosmos have been gen-
erated, which implies a generator or
maker. This maker, for lack of more
definite knowledge, we call ‘the gods.’
Thus, you see, they avoid the crass ma-

terialism of our scientific colleagues.
And this maker must have constructed
the universe of the four elements there-
tofore existing — earth, air, fire, and
water, as Empedokles teaches — leaving
over no single particle or potency of any
of these elements . . .”

Bulnes, watching Archealos, saw him
stiffen, look wonderingiy at Sokrates,
and cry in Modern Greek: “What’s all
this? I’m Eleftherios Protopapadakis,
and I had just dismissed my class — ”

This time the uproar drowned the
words of both Sokrates and Archelaos.
Then the latter sprawled back on his
couch as if nothing had happened. Bul-
nes, watching, saw Perikles scrutinize
the sheet of papyrus in his hand and
make a motion that looked suspiciously
like checking a name off a list. The
party had now become so disorganized
that it took five minutes for Archelaos
and Perikles to quiet the guests.

“Let us continue,” said Perikles,
“Whatever these strange seizures be,
they do not appear to last long or to
have ill effects. Will you resume your
talk, Sokrates?”

Sokrates resumed: “ ... so the gods,
in their first attempt 'at creating intel-
ligent creatures, constructed andro-
gynous bodies each with four arms and
four legs. But these proving awkward,
the gods in their kindness caused these
creatures to fall asleep, and while they
slept the gods split each of them length-
wise into two parts, one part being a
human male and one a human fe-
male . . .”

T here was more, about the mathe-
matical proportions the gods had
used in designing the universe, the
super-souls of the earth and the stars,
and the motions of the planets : all very
involved and couched in jawbreaking
compound terms.

Antiphon muttered: “He may not be
the stupidest man in Athens, but he
can certainly be the biggest bore when
he tries.”

Bulnes shook his head in assent.

THE GLORY THAT WAS

Finding the ideas expressed by Sokrates
not only difficult to grasp but so scien-
tifically obsolete as to be not worth
grasping, he turned his attention again
to Perikles.

The statesman, he saw, was frown-
ing slightly, glancing at his papyrus and
then up.

Bulnes said to Flin: “Look at Perikles.
He’s waiting for the next one.”

“Looks to me as if he were wondering
why the next one hasn’t gone off. Notice
how the blighter stares so fixedly at
Aspasia !”

It was true. The glances of Perikles
at his consort became longer and more
intense until Aspasia herself became
conscious of them and showed signs of
unease. She even leaned towards Peri-
kles and whispered a question into his
ear.

Sokrates cfroned on; “ . . . and thus
the gods made bone: they sifted earth
until it was pure and smooth, kneaded
it, and moistened it with marrow, and
by alternately dipping it in fire and
water so wrought upon it that it was
no longer soluble in either . . .”

“Knut!” said Flin in an undertone.
“Don’t you think Perikles expects As-
pasia to be the next to go?”

Bulnes nodded. “I wonder why — by
God, I know ! She’s an uncon — ”

At that instant a scream cut through
the monologue of Sokrates. Aspasia had
leaped up from her chair and was back-
ing away from Perikles, who had also
risen.

“So,” said Perikles, “you’re the spy
from Lenz, eh?”

“No— no— ”

“Then how do you speak English?”
Perikles advanced menacingly. Gone
was his quietly-cordial, elder-statesman
manner. The guests stared open-mouth-
ed.

Aspasia retreated toward the door
from the andron into the court. As she
neared it she spun round in a whirl of
draperies and ran. Perikles drew a dag-
ger from his chiton and ran swiftly after
her.

ULNES, glancing around, saw
nothing suitable for a weapon save the
ladle with which the wine in the kraters
had been mixed. He leaped from his
couch, snatched it up, and ran after
Perikles.

Aspasia vanished through the door,
Perikles after her, and Bulnes after Per-
ikles. At the middle of the andronitis
Aspasia detoured around the altar. The
slight check enabled Perikles to catch
up with her and drive the dagger into
her back.

^Imost simultaneously Bulnes, with a
leap of his long legs, reached Perikles
and struck him with the ladle on the
back of the head. There was a crunch-
ing sound and Perikles fell forward over
the body of his mistress.

“Ea! What is this?” cried Protagoras
from the doorway. “What a horror! A
sight for Aischylos to describe! I am
leaving. Boy, my shoes and cloak!
Hurry!”

All the other guests began shouting
for their slaves and their gear. They
streamed past the group in the court,
some carrying their sandals and himatia
without bothering to don them, and
rushed out through the front door, cry-
ing: “The furies must have done this!”
“A curse has fallen upon Athens!” “I
was not even here this evening!”

Bulnes then heard exclamations
among Perikles’s own servants: “The
master stabbed the mistress, and then
the foreign gentleman broke the mas-
ter’s head . . .”

In a few seconds they, too, were run-
ning out. Bulnes knelt and pulled Peri-
kles off the body of Aspasia. Both were
still alive. Bulnes examined the head
of Perikles and discovered that the pro-
jecting back of the head was a false
structure of plaster, covered with a wig,
which he had broken with the ladle.
Perikles, he judged, was merely
stunned. Aspasia was in worse case,
blood dyeing her chiton.

Bulnes looked up. Flin and Sokrates

78 STARTLING STORIES

stood beside him, but otherwise the
house seemed empty. Sokrates said:
“Such a devoted couple, too! And now
all their fair-weather friends have run,
lest one should be accused of having a
hand in this business.”

“How about you ?” said Bulnes.

“I care not. How are they? Dead?”
Bulnes gave his diagnosis. Sokrates
said: “The boy. Their son. Some older
friends must prepare him, and I seem
to be the one chosen by the gods for the
purpose. I shall be back presently.”

H e disappeared into the back of

the house. The woman who had
passed as Aspasia opened her eyes,
stirred, and coughed up a little bloody
froth. She said: “Get — message — to
Lenz.”

“Yes?” said Bulnes.

“Tell him — Vasil — suspects.” She
coughed. “If he — wants to seize — the
machine — to use on the world — do it
now.” '

“Why should Lenz wish to do that?”
said Bulnes.

“Power. Tell him— hurry.”

“And what’s the Emperor up to?”
“To make — people happy. He thinks
— they were happiest — in time of Peri-
kles. If he can make all the world— live
that way — he . . .” she went off into a
spasm of coughing.

“Why is he running this dress-re-
hearsal, as it were?”

“He thinks — he can avoid — some of
— the mistakes — of the original Peri-
kles. Bring back the Golden Age.”

Flin said : “For God’s sake, Knut,
let’s do something for her — ”

Bulnes waved him to silence. “Why,”
he asked Aspasia, “are you helping
Lenz?”

“I work— for him. He pays well — and
Vasil’s — a fool.”

“Where can we hide until we can
carry this message?”

“Try Kleon. Enemy of Perikles.”
“How accurate is this re-creation of
Athens? Has Vasil any special means of
viewing the past?”

“No. His experts — read books and
studied relics — like other people. Tell —
Lenz . . .”

Her voice trailed off and her eyes
closed. Though her pulse still beat, she
seemed to have lost consciousness. Bul-
nes said: “I don’t know there’s much
we can do for her, Bil. No modern
physicians or medicine, so she’ll prob-
ably die shortly.”

“How about him?”

“Merely a slight concussion.”

“By Jove, that puts us in a fix! We
can’t very well carry her through the
streets ; the moving would probably kill
her anyway; and if we leave her here
he’ll com.e to and finish her off.”

Bulnes shrugged. “Unless I did him
in now.”

“Gad, not that !”

“You’re probably right — for the
wrong reason. No use bumping Vasil
when Lenz would turn the conditioning-
machine on the -world. And as every-
body knows we were the last to leave
the house, he’ll be able to figure out
we’re unconditioned. Therefore, it won’t
do for him to find us here when he comes
to.”

Bulnes felt Aspasia’s pulse again; it
was still going feebly. He felt guilty
about leaving her, but as Wiyem had
said they could neither take her with
them (without being arrested) nor wait
until she died or recovered.

“Sokrates is still around,” he said.
“He can do about as much as we can,
which is damned little. Come on, we’re
going to Kleon’s.”

K LEON’S porter said : “I will call the
master.”

After a considerable wait the door
opened and a big voice rumbled : “Come
in, you two. What is this great news?”

The torchlight showed a man as tall
as Knut Bulnes, but stout and potbellied,
with a great mop of curly hair, a scanty
beard, a snub-nose, and small close-set
eyes. The man, Bulnes judged, must be
some years younger than himself. As
he looked more closely he realized that

THE GLORY THAT WAS

79

the other was holding a, short Greek
sword in one hand.

"It is this, 0 Kleon — ” began Flin, but
subsided when Bulnes trod on his toes.

Bulnes, sizing up Kleon, said: "Ex-
cuse the intrusion at such an unseemly
hour, good Kleon, but the news is in-
deed momentous, especially for you.
First, know that we are but two travel-
ling philosophers from far Tartessos,
who — ”

"Get on with it!” said Kleon. "Is the
Perikles dead, or what?”

"Not exactly.”

"How do you mean, not exactly?”

"The news is almost that important.
But hear me. We. having through no
fault of our own fallen foul of Perikles,
are seeking sanctuary, for as unregis-
tered foreigners we have little protec-
tion. In return for our news we look
to vou to provide it.”

Kleon thought, then said: “If you do
not mind living with my slaves, and if
your news be as important as you say,
very well. Now let us have it.”

“Perikles has just murdered Aspa-
sia.”

“What? Impossible!”

“True nevertheless. And before all
the philosophers of Athens, so you can
easily confirm my stofy.”

“Tell me, quickly! first come in
and shut that door. We do not wish all
the world from Caria to Carthage to
hear.”

Bulnes told the tale of the symposium.

“Bv the twelve postures of Kyrene!”
shouted Kleon, slapping his thigh. “This
is indeed the world’s wonder!” He began
pacing back and forth in the andronitis,
soliloquizing: “This will finish that com-
promiser, that seducer of the people!
Now they shall come into their own. No
more appeasment of Sparta; no more
pampering the subject cities. Athens
shall be mistress of an empire like that
of the Great King. Every Athenian
citizen a king!”

Pie slashed the air with his sword.

“And I will show the rotten rich, too!
Kleon the Tanner they call me, the per-

fumed weaklings, because I make my
living by honest slave-driving instead
of letting some slimy metic manage my
affairs. Well, I will tan their hides so
they shall long remember it ! I will grind
them underfoot as I will grind our rebel-
lious and ungrateful allies. But how
to topple old Long-Pate from his ped-
estal? Ha?” He glared at Bulnes, teeth
bared in a mirthless grin.

Bulnes said : “Not being familiar with
Athenian law, I do not know, but — could
not he be arrested for murder?”

“Who should arrest him ? Action
against a murderer must be brought be-
fore the King by the next of kin of the
victim. Aspasia was a Milesian with no
relatives in Athens, save her son by
Perikles who is only a boy.”

Flin squeaked : “Could not her patron
take action in such a case?”

“Yes, save that her patron is this
same Perikles. Would you have him
accuse himself?”

“Well then, could not the Polemar-
chos, as legal guardian of all metics, do
it?”

“You raise a nice point of law which,
so far as I know, had never been settled.
It might work — we Athenians have no
patience with legal subtleties that de-
feat justice. First, however, I think I
had better go to the Tholos and take up
the matter with the President of the
Council. The Presidency will call a
special assembly tomorrow to remove
Perikles from office for unfit conduct.
You two wait here, and do not dare to
go out until I return! Boy, my shoes
and himation, at once, and tell Sosias
and Geta to fetch their staves and
torches.”

XX

lS the fi'ont door closed behind
Kleon’s bulky form, Flin said: “That’s
a dangerous man, Knut.”

“So I gathered. What did the real
one do?”

“I believe when he got power he
persuaded the Assembly to have the

m STARTLING STORIES

whole population of some city massacred
or enslaved because they wouldn’t join
the Delian League — no, that was an-
other time. He did carry such a mo-
tion, but then somebody else persuaded
’em to cancel the order, and the people
were saved in the nick of time.”

Bulnes said: “We’ll have to watch
ourselves. You know, comrade. I can’t
help feeling I’ve seen Kleon somewhere
before, too.”

“I wonder who he could be in every-
day life ?”

“I don’t know; it’s just a feeling.
At least some things are becoming
clearer.”

“Such as?” said Flin.

“Vasil’s general pattern. What hap-
pened to the original Athens at this
point ?”

“The Peloponnesian Wark brok" out,
you know.”

“Yes, but in detail?”

“Oh, good heavens, it was a long and
comnlicated war . . .”

“The Athenians lost?”

“In the long run, yes.”

“And that war, you say, ruined Clas-
sical Greece?”

“More or less,” said Flin.

“Why did Athens lose?”

“As nearly as I can remember, several
reasons. One was that Perikle.s died of
a plague at the outset, and the Assembly
went off its rails without him to gu’de
it, They elected people like Kleon and
Alkibiades to be their leaders, and d’d
irresponsible things, like executing all
their generals because, Avhen they won
a naval battle, they failed to recover all
the bodies of their dead.”

“Temperamental, no?”

“Also, they’d been exploiting the
subject states of their empire until the
latter hated them and v^ere glad to
break away.”

“My dear Bil, I thought they were
the great ancient dem.ocracy?”

“They were. You’re used to modern
history, in which aristocrats and author-
itarians are the imperialists. In Athens
the common people were imperialists

and militarists, while the rich and the
aristocrats were for peace and modera-
tion.”

“I begin to see,” said Bulnes. “Vasil
thinks Periklean Athens was a high-
point in civilization, and that if Perikles
hadn’t made some errors of judgment,
and hadn’t died at a critical time, it
would have gone on getting better and
better. So, Vasil thinks, why not re-
create it by means of the conditioning-
machine his scientists have developed,
and run the picture over with himself
playing Perikles? This time, however,
he’ll profit by the experience of the real
Perikles. He’ll stave off the war with
Sparta; he’ll conciliate the allies, offer-
ing them union on equal terms as a mod-
ern statesman w'ould do. Then when
he’s reestablished the ideal civilization
on a stable basis, he’ll build up a super-
conditioner and put the entire world
under its influence.”

“How could he, since the Emperor has
no political power?”

“How could he get this far? Lenz
let him, either to keep him out of his
hair or, more likely, because Lenz hopes
to use the conditioner himself on the
world. If Vasil weren’t fundamentally a
fool, as Aspasia said, he’d have seen
that. What a way to keep everybody
under control! And you could justify it
by saying that they were all as happy
as possibF. even if they weren’t in their
riM-'t minds.”

Fhn said: “Another thouHit. V/hen
Vasil was new on the throne there were
stories about his being- bored v/ith mere
social leadership, dictating the length of
the lace on men’s cuffs and all that rot.
Perhaps this is/his idea of being a ruler
in fact as well as in name.”

“Well, you can’t blam.e him for being
bored, since he seems to be a man of
imagination, even if not a second Frank-
lin Roosevelt or Henri Quatre. Maybe
he likes running things on a small-scale
face-to-face basis, the way they do here,
instead of wrestling with the impersonal
red-tape of the World Government.”

Kleon returned to his house some time

THE GLORY THAT WAS 81

later, grinning. “I fixed them!” he
roared. “The Perikleans among the
Prytaneis tried to delay things, but I
showed them! The trumpeters have al-
ready gone out to sound a special as-
sembly for tomorrow morning. It is too
bad that you two cannot witness my
triumph. We were going to attack Per-
ikles through some of his friends, but
this is quicker. To your pallets, for-
eigners, and do not try to leave. I may
need you as witnesses if there is a
trial.”

A n hour before dawn the blat of the
trumpets awoke Knut Bulnes. As he
listened, the notes died away, to be re-
peated from a greater distance, and then
a still greater until they were barely
audible. That, he thought, would be the
trumpeters sent out the previous night
to the neighboring tov/ns of Attika : Pei-
raieus, Acharnai, and the rest.

When he and Flin crawled out of their
smelly little cubicle they found Kleon in
the court, muffled in his himation and
pacing restlessly.

“I go,” said the Tanner. “You two
may eat what you like ; get drunk, bed
a slave-girl, it is all the same to me.
But do not leave until I permit you.
lai for the people of Athens!”

He nodded towards his front door,
where a couple of stalwart slaves with
clubs stood prepared to enforce the or-
der, then strode out. Flin looked at Bul-
nes and said: “Last night this seemed
like a nice, safe refus'e from Perikles;
today it seems more like a trap.”

Bulnes smiled thinly. “My thought
precisely, my dear friend. I suppose we
shall have to spend the morning on vo-
cabulary-drill while the excitement goes
on at the Assembly.”

Bulnes was halfway through the list
of proparoxytone adjectives when the
porter accosted him: “Sir, there is a
Scythian archer at the door, one Par-
dokas, to see you. Shall I admit him?”

“By all m.eans,” said Bulnes. Then,
as Diksen came in: “My dear Roi, how
the devil did you find us?”

Diksen grinned. “You can’t hide
nothing from slaves, see? The Cricks
talk like we wasn’t even there, and of
course we pick things up and trade ’em
back and forth. What’s the dope on the
big-shot sticking a shiv in his beasel?”
Bulnes told him.

“Geez, what do you know?” said Dik-
sen. “Things is hotting up. I s’pose this
means I gotta stay up all day,” He
yawned. “Gotta get over to the ’Pnyx
for this special assembly. Don’t take
no wooden nickels!”

T he morning dragged on. Towards
noon Bulnes heard Kleon’s bellow
outside. As the Tanner came in he took
a crack at the porter with his walking-
stick, roaring: “That will teach you to
open promptly when I call! Ho there,
you Tartessians !”

“Yes?” said Bulnes. “Did something
go wrong?”

“It might have been worse. I had
presented my case, and all was going
well, when the followers of the Perikles
made an uproar, yelling like Illyrians till
the President declared he felt an earth-
quake and adjourned the session be-
cause the gods were displeased. Gods!”
He spat. “I had no time to bring up my
main point — that for a long time Peri-
kles has been receiving mysterious visit-
ors who slip away from his house and
disappear. One of my men followed one
of these to the Theseion, where the fel-
low vanished into thin air. Spartan spies
without doubt, arranging the betrayal
of Athens. However, we shall continue
tomorrow. Where is my lunch? Quick,
scum, before I beat you to a jelly!”

The slaves scurried to obey. As they
waited there came another knock. In
came a man.

“What is it, Hermippos?” said Kleon.
The man replied: “The squill-head is
rallying his friends on the Akropolis
with arms ! We shall have a tyranny by
nightfall, if nothing hinders.”

“What stops us?” said Kleon. “We
have arms too.”

“But the constitution — ”

82

STARTLING STORIES

“Drat the constitution! I will give
the people a better one, when I have
ground their enemies into the mire.
Sosias, my arms! Hermippos, run, tell
Glykon and Diopithes and Drakontides
and our other friends to arm themselves
and rouse their friends . . . here, I had
better give you a list. Where is that
worthless secretary of mine? Tell them
to mark a big delta on their shields,
with charcoal, delta for demos. Let
them assemble on the path leading up
to the Propylaia within the hour." As he
spoke, his slaves helped him into his
greaves and cuirass.

Flin said; “This isn’t in character
either. The original Perikles was a good
democrat who was once legally deposed
without attempting violence.’’

“This isn’t the original Perikles,” said
Bulnes. “He only thinks he is . . . my
dear Kleon, you have no more reason
to keep us here. Let us go, if you will
be so kind, and if you wish us later you
can get in touch with us at the inn of
Podokles.”

“Go to the crows, for all I care! Now
let me think ; we want Hagnon and Sim-
mias and Lakratidas . . .”

Bulnes and Flin slipped out and head-
ed for the Akropolis. Bulnes said: “If
Kleon wins — ”

“That dreadful man?”

“Precisely, colleague. If he wins
that’ll end the experiment, no matter
what happens to Vasil. Somebody’ll
turn off the conditioner — ”

“Not necessarily, henz might simply
take it over, whether Vasil’s killed or
not, as the first step in his own pro-
gram.”

“Then I suppose, my dear Bil, it’s up
to us to turn it off.”

“How?” said Flin.

“No se. If we had some explosives, or
even a power-saw ...”

“Could we loop a rope around the
neck of the statue and pull it over?”

“Doubt it. You’d need half the rope
in the Arsenal of Philon and a couple
of hundred men . . . Dios!” Bulnes
clapped a hand to his head. “I know

who Kleon is !”

“Who?”

“The long-lost Prince Serj, Vasil’s
brother! I knew I’d seen those pig’s
eyes somewhere.”

Flin said : “How can that be ? There’s
not that much difference between their
ages.”

“There’s about twenty years, in actual
fact, and I think Vasil uses makeup to
look older. Just another of his queer
ideas, to dispose of his brother by con-
ditioning him to play the part of one
of Perikles’ s enemies.”

XXI

S THEY neared the Akropolis, Bul-
nes became aware of occasional armed
men making their way in the same di-
rection. When they got within sight of
the saddle between the Akropolis and
the Areopagos he saw several clumps of
such men standing around the path that
zigzagged up to the Propylaia, and a
continuous trickle of more men arriv-
ing. Most of those in the groups were
holding shield and spear in one hand to
have the other free for forensic ges-
tures. As they approached, the sound of
universal argumentation came to Bul-
nes’s ears like the cackle of a colossal
barnvard.

Flin said: “At least at this stage the
Athenians were st'll a fighting race, and
hadn’t come to depend on mercenaries
yet.”

They paused to watch at a safe dis-
tance from the hoplites, along with
m.any other unarmed or undecided
Athenians. As the armed men became
more numerous theV gradually coalesced
into two sets, one of the partisans of
Kleon (identified by the triangle on
their shields) and the other those of
Perikles. The two sets shouted argu-
ments, threats, and insults at each
other.

Somebody among the Perikleans (who
stra.ggled up towards the Propylaia,
leaving the Kleonians on the lower
slopes) noticed the letter on the shields

THE GLORY THAT WAS 83

carried by the men of his own side.

Kleon puffed up the slope at last,
towering over his partisans like a liner
among tugs. Bulnes could hear his bull’s
voice but not make out the words. “Let’s
move a little closer,’’ he suggested to
Flin.

Bulnes and Flin climbed higher up the
saddle on the Areopagos side, where
they had a good view. Kleon was point-
ing off to the northeast and cr^dng:

“Athenians, look upon the statues of
the famous Tyrannicydes ! Will you en-
dure that another tyranny be riveted
about your necks ? It is time we had an-
other heroic Harmodios, another Ar-
istogeiton . .

The stream of Perikleans up the path
had abated; only a few straggled up
now. Kleon roared : “On which side
strive these two coming up the path?
Perikleans? Slay them! Elleleleu!”

There was a rush of hoplites and a
clash of spear-points on bronze. Then
one Periklean was down with men jab-
bing at him, while the other, throwing
away spear and shield and discarding
his helmet as he ran, bounded down the
path faster than his more heavily bur-
dened pursuers could follow.

“Come back up here!’’ yelled Kleon.
“Do not let yourselves be scattered.”

“Look that way,” said Flin, pointing.

B elow, somebody had organized a
group of Perikleans and was march-
ing them rapidly eastward along the
north foot of the Akropolis. The after-
noon sun gleamed on their arms. Kleon
must have seen them too, for he hustled
together a group of his men and ordered
them: “Hurry to the back stairs of the
Akropolis, and block it, lest any more
partisans of the satyr-king go up that
way!”

He waddled about, pushing men into
the positions he thought they ought to
take and haranguing everyone within
earshot.

Bulnes said: “They seem to take all
day to get organized. At this rate it’ll
be dark before they start fighting.”

“He’s probably trying to make politi-
cal arrangements before joining battle,”
said Flin. “See those chaps coming up?
There’s the Polemarchos, and there’s
the King, and the rest are the other
Archons. Kleon’s a clever lad; wants
the law on his side if possible.”

Bulnes and Flin sat down, watching,
while interminable conferences took
place, with endless wagging of hands
and heads and messengers coming and
going. In particular, messengers ran up
the path into the Propylaia and back
down to Kleon.

At length Kleon came to a decision
and began marshalling his forces. “The
squill-head,” he roared, “says he will
treat with us up on the Akropolis, on
the east porch of the Propylaia. Form
a column of fours ; hold yourselves
ready ; don’t straggle. It may be a trap.
Stay together.”

“Vasil is up to something,” said Bul-
nes. “Let’s go up with them.”

That, however, proved easier said
than done, for under Kleon’s direction
his men crowded up the path to the Pro-
pylaia so closely packed that there was
no room for a mere spectator. Presently
the column halted and began to bunch
up.

“Spread out into the Propylaia!”
yelled Kleon. “Make way; I am coming
up. What do you two want?” he ex-
claimed, turning on Bulnes and Flin,
who v/ere trying to ride his wake up the
crowded path.

“My dear Kleon,” said Bulnes, “I
know more about the plans and methods
of Perikles than you can ima.gine. If
you will kindly let us come up with you
we may be of help.”

“What do you expect for your help,
eh?”

“Merely to see right triumph.”

“Huh. Well, come along.”

T hey pushed their way up to the
Propylaia, where the crowd lessened
somewhat because the men had spread
out among the pillars and along the
steps of this great gateway.

S4

STARTLING STORIES

At the east side of the Propylaia,
where the steps reached the level of
the Akropolis, Kleon’s men ranked sol-
idly among the columns. Looking be-
tween the plumes of the helmets Bulnes
saw why: a few paces away stood a
counter-rank of Perikleans, shields lined
up and spears poised at shoulder-height.

Kleon pushed through his own men
into the open space between the two
armies. At least, Bulnes thought, the
demagogue was no coward, to place him-
self where a single well-cast spear could
end his burgeoning political career.

“0 Perikles!” shouted Kleon. “Come
forth !”

“I am here,” said Perikles, who had
climbed up on a great bronze chariot be-
hind the front rank of his own men. He
wore his usual Corinthian helmet pushed
back to show the Olympian calm of his
regular features. Behind the chariot
towered Athene Promachos.

Kleon spoke: “What means this at-
tempt at tyranny, you murderer, you
traitor, you tool of the rich, you creature
of the Spartans?”

“No tyranny,” said the brisk voice of
Perikles, “but an effort to forestall an
act by the Athenians which they might
regret later. I have a message for them
from the goddess Athene herself.”

“Do you expect us to believe that you,
a notorious atheist, would be entrusted
with a divine message?”

“No; the goddess herself shall speak
to you.”

“Ha-ha ... I suppose you will dress
a tall woman in armor and pass her off
as Athene, as did the other tyrant?”

“Not at all. Pallas Athene herself
shall speak, right now.” Perikles turned
and waved an arm towards the collossus.
“Sneak, 0 goddess!”

Bulnes, not knowing quite what to
expect, almost jumped out of his skin
when a tremendous voice thundered
forth from the statue of Athene Proma-
chos :

“Men of Athens! Athene speaks to
you. Know that the Perikles is no ty-
rant, nor yet a traitor or murderer, but

my best-beloved foster-son. Trust him,
follow him, support him in every way,
and he will insure glory, peace, and
prosperity for you and for your descend-
ants, and honorable burial for you all.
Turn against him, and nothing awaits
you but defeat, poverty, and destruc-
tion. Those of you who have impulsively
taken up arms against him, return to
your homes and store your arms against
the day when Athens shall lead all Hel-
las against the threatening hordes of
encircling barbarians. Obey the laws,
preserve the peace, uphold Perikles, and
join him in m.aking Athens a beacon-
light for the world. I have spoken.”

There was a moment of utter silence
when the great voice stopped, broken
by a squeal from Flin : “By Gad, a pub-
lic-address system!”

Then came a clatter of arms as
Kleon’s men retreated precipitously
down the path from the Propylaia
towards the city.

XXII

A^ULNES, followed by Flin, plunged
into the mob and caught Kleon’s mili-
tary mantle as the politician trotted
down the steps of the Propylaia with
the rest of the rout.

“What now?” said Kleon, turning a
fat face gray with terror.

“It is a trick!” said Bulnes. “Perikles
has a machine for enlarging the voice,
hidden in that statue. I can prove it,
and I can destroy the machine. Rally
your men before they all melt away.”

“Rally!” bawled Kleon instantly. “It
is a trick! I can prove it! No goddess,
but a bit of Thessalian witchcraft ! It is
a trick! To me, my men!” He turned to
Bulnes. “You had better be right ; if this
be a trick on your part it will be your
last. Hagnon! Diopithes! This way!
Catch those runagates. It is a trick of
the same sort Peisistratos played with
the woman Phye.”

He rushed about, catching a man here
and a man there, shaking them, push-
ing them, and by sheer force of person-

THE GLOEY

ality rounding up nearly half his original
force.

“And now?” said Kleon.

“Make sure you have the Propylaia
blocked,” said Bulnes, “so the Perikleans
cannot come down. Then fetch me a lot
of strav? — say a few dozen beds — and a
couple of jars of oil.”

“What are you going to do?” whis-
pered Flin.

“It just occurred to me that a good
hot fire would melt the gravito-magnetic
connections in the statue.”

“What are you saying?” said Kleon.

“Never mind; get me that straw and
oil, and a torch.”

Kleon gave the orders that sent a
score of men running down the hill into
the city.

Bulnes said ; “Make a speech or some-
thing to keep your men occupied until
they get back.”

“0 Kleon!” called a man with a pi
on his shield. “Perikles wishes to know
when you will obey the commands of
the goddess.”

“Tell him to give us time. This is too
serious a matter to be decided without
a discussion.” Kleon addressed his own
men: “Men of Athens, you know that
Athene, most virtuous of deities, would
not employ a notorious murderer and
traitor as her messenger to mortals.
What you have heard is certainly very
impressive, but let us not be fooled as
were our great-grandparents by Peisis-
tratos of infamous memory a century
ago.. I have reason to believe that the
voice you heard was a trick . . .”

He went on and on until the m.en he
had sent out began to trickle back up
the hill with their arms full of pallets.

“Kindly give me a few men to help
me, my good Kleon,” said Bulnes.

Under Bulnes’s direction they dragged
their burdens out along the cliff-path
leading to the Caves of Apollo and Pan.
He led them into the Cave of Pan, into
the passage to the priest-hole (at the
sight of which some of them whistled)
and into the tunnel leading back from
that recess to the main subterranean

THAT WAS 8S

tunnel-system. He turned right at the
intersection, climbed the slope, and
presently stood under the interior brac-
ing of the big statue.

He said to Flin, puffing beside him:
“Wish I could knock off the lady’s head
to improve the draft. You men, do you
see those things up inside the statue
that look something like women’s hair-
ornaments? That is where your ‘divine
voice’ came from. Pour some of that oil
on the pallets and stuff them up inside
the statue as far as you can. Not too
much noise; we don’t want to alarm
those outside.”

YTien the oil-soaked pallets were all
pushed into place, Bulnes himself thrust
the torch at the nearest. The straw
caught fire with a floomp, and then they
were trotting hastily out of the tunnel
with thick smoke billowing behind them.
The straw roared and crackled.

B ack at the Propylaia, Bulnes said to
Kleon; “You may go back up above
again; in a short while Perikles’s divine
voice will be stilled for good.”

“Out of my way,” said Kleon, and
stamped up the marble steps. At the
porch he halted. The Periklean forces
had come forward a little way with the
retreat of the Kleonians, but most of
them were still massed around the
chariot on which Perikles stood. Beyond
the chariot, little curls of black smoke
were beginning to issue from the Prom-
achos.

“0 Perikles!” roared Kleon. “Look
behind you ! So much for your pretended
goddess ! If it was not a trick, let Athene
speak again!”

Perikles looked around, uttered an
exclamation, dropped off the chariot,
and hurried over to the statue. He
fumbled among her brazen skirts and
opened the same little door that Bulnes
had come out of on the previous occa-
sion. Then he leaped back as a mass
of bright yellow flame roared out, pre-
venting him from closing the door
again. The improved draft stimulated
the fire, for its roar became plainly aud-

86 STARTLING STORIES

ible and the volume of smoke greatly
increased.

Perikles strode purposefully towards
Kleon and Bulnes. He pushed through
the front rank of his own hoplitai, ex-
claiming: “So that is what you have
been up to! Well, if the play is to end,
at least you shall not live to succeed me,
you self-seeking rabble-rouser!”

He whipped a pistol out from under
his cloak, took careful aim at Kleon
iwho stared uncomprehendingly at the
device) and fired. The crack of the fire-
arm mingled with the explosion of the
bullet. Bulnes felt warm wetness spat-
ter him, and looked around in time to
see Kleon. his head gone, fall backwards.

“The Tartessian !” said Perikles in
English. “Another spy for Lenz, eh?”

Perikles swung his pistol up, then
brought it down slowly, drawing a bead
on Bulnes’s belly. The editor stood help-
lessly. unable to dodge, run, or attack.
The Emperor’s finger tightened on the
trigger.

From behind Bulnes came a flat un-
musical snap, followed in the same frac-
tion of a second by the thump of an
arrow striking a human target. Peri-
kles staggered back and fired one wild
shot. The bow twanged again. With
two arrows in his chest. Perikles-Vasil
fell back upon the flagstones.

“Didn’t get here none too soon, did
I?” said Roi D’ksen. “Hey, look at Flin
— the guy’s fainted !”

At that instant the same strange agi-
tation began to creep over the crowd
of armed men that Bulnes had seen on
the drill-field and again at the house of
Perikles: men dropped their spears and
shields as if they had never seen them
before and turned in v/onflerment and
alarm to ask each other in Modern Greek
who and where they were.

Bulnes stepnofl forward to where lay
Vasfl Hohnsol-Romano. Fmperor of the
Earth, and picked up the pistol.

The Emperor looked up and said
faintly: “Fools! Pd have made you a
heaven on earth. The mob never knows
what’s — good for . . .”

His head lolled -and he was dead.

Diksen said: “Hey, Mr. Bulnes, the
gimmick must be off!”

Bulnes gestured toward the statue of
Athene Promachos. The fire was be-
ginning to burn itself out, though the
statue still glowed redly in spots. He
said: “That’s our doing.”

“Yeah? Then we’re the only folks
here knows what the score is. You bet-
ter get up and tell ’em.”

“I suppose so.” Bulnes wearily hoisted
himself on to the bronze chariot and
spoke in Romaic :

“Gentlemen ! If you will kindly listen
to me I shall tell you what has hap-
pened . . .”

AN HOUR later he had finished his
explanation, answered questions,
and organized the nearest Greeks into
an impromptu government of Athens:
some to go down into the city and re-
peat his explanation to the bewildered
people there; others to police the town
until it could reorganize itself ; others to
accompany Bulnes into the tunnels.
Diksen he made police-chief, despite
the latter’s wails of protest: “But I tell
you I don’t v:ant no damn iob here! I
wanna get back to good old Yonkers!”

Flin, revived, said: “I’m going right
down to the Peiraieus to find Thaha!”

“Wait, my dear comrade,” said Bul-
nes. “I have a task — ”

“Oh, find somebody else! I haven’t
got a minute to spare!” And off the
srnpP man trotted.

Bulnes led his men back to the Cave
of Apollo, into the tunnel from the
priest-hole, and by turning left at the
T brought them to the door opening
into the main tunnels. This tim.e he
pushed the bell-button.

After a while the door opened, dis-
closing a surprised-looking man in khaki
trousers and shirt.

Bulnes said: “Out of the way, my
dear sir. The Emp’s dead and the broad-
casting-machine is wrecked. The show’s
over.”

The man w’ent for a pistol. Bulnes

THE GLORY THAT WAS 87

whipped up the Emperor’s gun'and fired,
crack! When he could see again, after
the flash of the explosion of the pro-
jectile, the man was a gory mess lying
on the floor without his right arm.

Bulnes picked up the man’s pistol,
handed it to the nearest Greek, and led
his men down the tunnel to the entrance
beneath the Theseion. The man at the
desk looked up open-mouthed as Bulnes
thrust his^ pistol into his face and said :
“Give me the key to the machine-gun
rack, quickly, if you please.”

Bulnes unlocked the rack and passed
out the guns. In fifteen minutes he and
his men had a hundred-odd employees
of the proiect rounded up and facing
various walls with their hands up. All
the switches had been pulled, including
that which controlled the force-walls
surrounding Greece.

B ulnes told the Greeks: “Take them
out and chain them up in the Oike-
ma until we decide what to do with
them. Here you, my good man, where
is there an outside telephone?”

When he found the ’phone he dialled
long-distance, then England, then Tra-
falgar 9-0672.

“Are you there?” he said. “Is this
Trends Maciazine ? Good. Put me
through to Mr. Biird, please. Robert?
Knut Bulnes speaking. I have a story
for you; put the recorder on . . .”

When he had given his editor-in-chief
an account of the Periklean Project and
his part in the recent events, he rang
off and dialled Dagmar Mekrei’s apart-
ment.

“Why, Knut, darling!” she exclaimed
when he had identified himself. “What
on earth happened to you? You disap-
peared off the face of the earth last
month . . . .”

“You’ll read all about it in tomorrow’s
papers, darling. I’m in Athens — ”

“But you can’t be! That’s reserved
territory!”

“Not any more, mariposa. Travel
should be reestablished in a few days.”
“You’ll be coming back to London?”

“Not quite yet: Bob Biird was so
pleased with the story I gave him that
he told me to take as long as I liked.
It happens that my little ship is at the
bottom of the harbor — ”

“Oh, how dreadful!”

“ — and it’ll take weeks to raise her,
since thei-e’s no modern salvage appar-
atus here. I thought you might like to
fly down here as soon as the airlines
are running again, stay here sightsee-
ing while I get the ship up, and sail back
to England with me.”

“Oh— Knut— ”

“Yes ?”

“I’m dreadfully sorry but — I’m mar-
ried.”

“You what?”

“Married. Remember Kaal Beiker?
He’s been asking me a long time, and
when you disappeared — well — ”

“When was this?”

“Four days ago. He moved in with
me, and I expect him home from work
any time now.”

Bulnes gulped, feeling the blood rush
to his face. “Well — uh — thanks for
telling me. I hope — I hope — oh, hell!
Good-bye, Dagmar.”

He hung up and turned unsteadily
from the telephone. When he had
pulled himself together he comman-
deered one of the power-scooters used
in the tunnels. A couple of Greeks
helped him manhandle it out of the tun-
nel, and he set off for the inn of Po-
dokles.

A N HOUR later he arrived, in dun-
^ garees and yachting-cap, in front of
the house of Euripides in the Peiraieus.
He parked the motor-scooter in the street
and, with a bundle under his arm,
knocked on the door.

Euripides himself opened. When Bul-
nes explained who he was, Euripides
said: “Come in, comie in. I’m really
Kostis Vutiras, formerly a reporter for
the Athenian Herald. Your friend Flin
is here, and has been telling me that for
seven or eight years I’ve been living the
life of Euripides the ancient poet. I

88 STARTLING STORIES

should Jind it hard to believe, except
for thi» . . .

He tugged the fantastic beard and
led the way in.

“It is a little embarrassing,” he con-
tinued in a lowered voice, “as you can
imagine, to find that the woman you’ve
been sleeping with for years belonged to
somebody else all the time — but then we
have to take a sensible attitude. I have
a wife somewhere too, and God knows
what she’s been up to.”

Flin was sitting on an Athenian eat-
ing-couch with his arm around the bux-
om Thalia. Bulnes looked at Thalia, who
greeted him without any sign of remem-
bering his previous visit. He said: “Here
are your modern clothes, my dear Wiy-
em. God save me from riding a motor-
scooter over these alleged roads again !”

Thalia asked: “Have you been in
touch with London yet, Knut?”

“Yes. I ’phoned the story in to my
magazine, and spoke to Dagmar.”

“How is dear Dagmar after all these
years?”

“She’s somebody else’s dear Dagmar
now. She married that fellow Beiker a
few days ago.” He looked at the others
with dawning suspicion. “By God, I’ll
bet that’s why he was so keen to pass on
that rumor about all the Greeks having
been shanghaied back to Greece, so Bil
would urge this cruise and I’d be gotten
out of the way!”

Thalia said: “Oh, Knut, I’m sorry!”
while Flin, after a futile effort to con-
trol his features, burst into a guffaw.

“You find it amusing?” said Bulnes.

“I’m s-sorry, Knut, really. But you
go around all these years saying you
won’t be tied down by marriage and no
ruddy woman is worth it and all that rot,
and v/hen you get stood up — ”

“It serves him right,” said Thalia.
“The way he kept the poor girl dangling
so long, it’s no wonder . . .”

Flin had been going through his
clothes, and now brought from one of
the pockets a radio no bigger than a
cigarette case. He snapped it on.

“Where’d you get that?” said Bulnes

“Had it all the time, but it didn’t work
inside the force-wall.”

The radio said: “We interrupt this
program to bring another special bulle-
tin. News of the unmasking of the
late Emperor’s Periklean Project, as it
is called, has reached the World Parlia-
ment in New York and has caused tre-
mendous excitement. A number of the
Populist supporters of Prime Minister
Rudolf Lenz have deserted him and gone
over to the Diffusionists. It now ap-
pears certain that the government will
fall, and that the twelve-year strong-
arm rule of the Lenz Ministry is at an
end. The coronation of fourteen-year-
old Crown Prince Seril will take place

F lin said: “Wonder what they’ll do
with all these magnificent reproduc-
tions of ancient buildings? Tear ’em
down and set up the authentic ruins
again ?”

Euripides-Vutiras was pouring wine.
Bulnes said: “At least we can now
drink our wine straight without being
thought barbarians.”

. “What are your immediate plans,
Knut?” asked Flin.

“To raise my boat. I don’t suppose
you’d be interested . . . .”

“Oh, no ! We’re rushing back to Eng-
land as soon as there’s transportation.
Why don’t you ask Diksen to go with
you ? He’s a handy young chap.”

“Not a bad idea,” sighed Bulnes, feel-
ing old and unloved. “Anyway, here-
after I’ll do as I like, eat what I like,
and not v/hat some megalomaniac em-
peror thinks I ought — ”

“Indeed?” said Vutiras. “Plas it oc-
curred to you that even in your so-called
normal, m.odern, twenty-seventh-century
world, you may be merely somebody’s
puppet, as Mrs. Flin and I were in this
— only you haven’t been clever enough
to penetrate back-stage yet?”

Bulnes and Flin exchanged an ap-
palled glance. The latter said : “Oh, my
goodness gracious! What a perfectly
beastlv idea!” • # •

THE INTKIJeEII

Bt OLIVEM saabi

T he first thing Baldwin felt was
the cool pressure of the inhalator
cone against his face. Sluggishly his
thoughts unwound from a soft, sticky
darkness. He’d been asleep — no! —
he’d been drugged ! He breathed deeply

and let the sweet-smelling antidote fill
his lungs.

Images solidified : first the pretty
face of the stewardess, then the room.
A private room, of course, for him . . .
Memory returned, and with it a cons-

To have an exact duplicate of yourself shov/ up and take

over your business, your wife? . . . brother, it's murder!

89

90 STARTLING STORIES

ciousness of regret. Regret that the
Ultrabeam Jump was sensually so un-
pleasant as to make anesthesia neces-
sary. There was a certain loss of dig-
nity in being doped and bundled about
like a piece of luggage . . . Still, a
day’s drugged sleep was a small price
to pay for spanning the gulf between
the stars.

“You should lie down and rest awhile,
Sir,” said the stewardess.

Noting a nervous, hesitant quality to
her voice, Baldwin looked at her more
attentively. What was there in her
manner that made him uneasy? She
seemed too scared, too unsure of her-
self . . .

He was not on the ship.

The realization brought all his senses
into sudden focus. This luxurious room
was not the cramped cabin of an Ultra-
beam transport. It was more like the
room he’d had at the Alpha Centauri
Station, but not the same one. His lug-
gage was piled neatly in the corner.

“Why was I moved?”

“Mr. Carmody’s orders, sir.”

“Mr. Carmody’s orders!” repeated
Baldwin in astonishment, “Who does he
think he — ”

He bit off the words as the girl
opened a door and dodged past a blue-
uniformed guard who stood squarely in
the opening. A golden sunburst on the
broad chest was marked Baldwin Trans-
stellar Special Police, and the uniform
cap said Solar Station. Baldwin knew,
then, that he’d made the Jump and ar-
rived at his destination. Carmody must
have had him moved off the ship like
any third-class passenger! Why?

The guard stood a head taller than
Baldwin, barring his way. “Sorry, sir,
you can’t go through just now.”

“Look here! I’m T. J. Baldwin. I
own this place. I can fire you and who-
ever gave the stupid order you’re fol-
lowing.”

“Wait, please, sir — ”

The uniformed man was nervous but
unyielding.

■pALDWIN tried to push past the
guard, but was stopped effectively.
He felt a sudden pang of fear and an
accelerating of his heart. What could
have gone wrong? His last feeling be-
fore anesthesia on the transport had
been one of well-being, a memory of
accomplished objectives. The local gov-
ernment had wanted Transstellar to
move its Centauri Station a billion miles
farther out. They’d claimed that Prox-
ima, the third sun of their system, was
moving too close to the beam and mak-
ing operation dangerous. Baldwin had
gone to fight the order and he’d licked
it, saving the company millions. There
had been a few short cuts in his victory,
of course, but nothing that could lead to
his legitimate arrest. Why, then, was
he being held prisoner in this room?

“I wish to see Commander Carmody,”
he said very coldly, stepping back.

The guard was spared from answer-
ing by the hurried appearance of a
beefy, perspiring man in platinum-
braided uniform.

The newcomer stopped just inside the
room, the folds in his chin deepening as
he saw Baldwin.

“You’re up! I told them not to wake
you.”

“You — Carmody,” snapped Baldwin.
“Tell this idiot to move his muscles out
of my way. Tell him who I am.”

“I don’t know who you are,” said Car-
mody in a peculiar tone.

Baldwin stared at him. He knew now
that something was really wrong, that
the Commander was playing a game
with roots in something deep. Perhaps
someone higher up was involved . . .
The thought made him blanch.

“I don’t know who you are,” repeated
Carmody, his brow squeezing out beads
of perspiration. “We’d better go to my
office and talk.”

“You don’t have any office,” snapped
Baldwin, thoroughly angry now. “You’re
through, Carmody! I don’t care if you
cere, my cousin !”

“Come on,” said the Commander

THE INTRUDER 91

wearily, taking his arm. “Let’s go talk
it over. If I’m crazy I’ll admft it.’’

COME WHAT calmed, Baldwin followed
^ the other through the door. The
corridor led to a promenade which faced
the main waiting room of the Station.
The place had an air of vastness Bald-
win had always liked. The iridescent
sky was painted on metal, and the trees
and buildings hid strengthening beams
and stanchions, but the illusion of plane-
tary conditions was good.

There was excitement on the floor,
an unnatural flux. People who should
have been hurrying about were gath-
ered in small knots, talking and gesticu-
lating. Others swarmed around the
information enclosure, jostling and
squeezing. Baldwin was bursting with
impatience by the time they reached the
Commander’s olfce.

“All right, Carmody. I want to know
what this is all about. You’ve still got
a chance if you can talk fast — •”

“Wait, before you say anything
more,” the Commander interrupted.
There was a note of pleading in his
voice. “Something’s happened. An ac-
cident. You (tre Baldwin, aren’t you?”

“You know I am!”

“All right, I believe you. But so was
the other ore!’’

“Other one?”

“You just came from Centauri, didn’t
you? On the six-twenty?”

“You should know! You had me
moved off the ship!”

Carmody took a deep breath, obvi-
ously stalling for time.

“I’ll give it to you the way I see it,”
he said finally. “The six-twenty came
in the first time more than four hours
ago. You were on board that ship too.”

Baldwin sank into a chair, his mind
cold, clear, and racing. He thought of
several possible explanations for Car-
mody’s statement, and discarded them
one by one. The only answer that made
any sense was that the Commander was
crazy.

“I know how it sounds,” said Car-
mody sullenly. “I know what you’re
thinking. But I tell you there ivas
another six-twenty, and you were on it.
I shook your hand. I put you on the
shuttle boat. I watched it take off and
head for Earth.”

Baldwin jumped to his feet and
slammed the palm of his hand on Car-
mody’s desk, hard. “I don’t know what
you’re trying to pull. But I think I’ll
fire you just for not being able to think
of a better story!”

“Something happened in the Ultra-
beam,” insisted Carmody, jabbing at an
intercom button. “I’m having my tech-
nicians look into it now.”

“But there was no other ship! Why
don’t you check with the Centauri
Station?”

“I’m checking,” said Carmody wear-
ily, punching the intercom again. “You
know it takes two days to get an answer
back. All we know is two ships came
in and you were on the second one.”

T he intercom was still silent, but a
small, thin man came running into
the room. On seeing Baldwin he came
to an abrupt halt, jaw hanging.

“Well, Nelson” snapped Carmody.
“She’s the six-twenty all right,
Chief,” the man said excitedly. “We
compared her with the first one, and
they’re like two castings from the
same mold. Even the same specks of
dust!”

“But where in blazes did the second
one come from?” demanded Carmody.

“There’s been some uneasiness about
Proxima Centauri moving too close to
our transmission line. You know how
the Ultrabeam’s unstable in a strong
gravity field^that’s why the Stations
are built so far out — ”

“Tell me, man — what happened?” bel-
lowed Carmody, banging the desk with
his fist.

“We think Proxima’s field split the
beam in two ! Something like a double-
refracting crystal splits ordinary light.

92 STARTLING STORIES

Lucky for us one phase lagged the
other one by four hours, or there would
have been one helluva bang in the re-
ceivers !”

“Are you trying to tell me the second
ship came out of notMngf”

“The mass-energy must have come
from Proxima herself. It’s been a known
theoretical possibility . .

Baldwin listened to the discourse in
stunned silence. Disbelief gave way to
a growing horror. His personal advisers
had assured him Proxima would not
disturb the beam. If this accident had
actually happened, heads would roll.

“Then there’s no possibility of — of —
a trick?’’ he heard Carmody say. “The
ships are identical? You’ve checked on
the — uh — doubles ?”

“Pm having a pair of them sent here
now,” said the technician. “They’re
absolutely alike: fingerprints, cardio-
graphs, cephalographs, credentials — ■
everything.”

Baldwin struggled between alterna-
tives of disbelief and fear. He sat with-
out saying a word or moving a muscle
until a guard ushered in two men.

They were like two prints from the
same negative, with the identical ex-
pressions of terror on their well-fed
faces. Their lower lips trembled in the
same way, and they were nervously
wringing their pudgy hands. They
didn’t seem to want to look at one
another.

Baldwin was conscious of his own
dry-throated voice saying, “I’m T. J.
Baldwin. There’s been an accident.”

“I — I’ve been told,” said the two
simultaneously. “I’d like to get home
as soon as possible, sir. My wife — ”

The two mouths stopped moving at
the same instant. The two faces turned
to one another and blanched.

Baldwin buried his head in his hands
and shuddered.

“Take them away . . . Take them
away,” he moaned.

After the two had gone, there was
silence in the office. For a full five min-

utes Baldwin could hear only the rasp
of his own breathing. Little by little
the conviction of truth settled down on
him. Then there must be another T. J.
Baldwin, another he, out there in space
somewhere. That other one was going
home.

“What do you think I should do, Mr.
Baldwin?” asked Carmody finally.

“Get me a ship,” said Baldwin wear-
ily. “I want to go home.”

^HE office building looked as though
Baldwin Transstellar were trying to
reach the stairs by piling concrete on
steel. As Baldwin stared down the two-
thousand-foot side of it from the win-
dow of the landing airtaxi, he felt
jumpy and nervous, strangely unsure
of himself.

His office was on the top floor and
had a private entrance. He walked over
to it on buttery knees, feeling somehow
like an intruder as he entered the thick-
carpeted corridor. The relief he’d need-
ed and expected didn’t come. His nerves
cried for release, and yet every step
wound him tighter and tighter. __

The massive door of his office was
locked. Baldwin placed a trembling
hand on the scanner key and the door
opened softly. The man sitting behind
the desk looked up, startled.

That man was T. J. Baldwin.

The shock was somehow even deeper
than Baldwin had expected. Up to then
he hadn’t really believed that another
he existed. He would have been re-
lieved to find out he’d been tricked, no
matter what the subterfuge implied.
But here before him sat the objective
reality — his ovm mirror image, solid as
life. His mind tried to believe his
senses . . .

They looked at each other for a min-
ute in silence, studying each other’s
features in an agony of interest.

“Glad to see you,” said the man be-
hind the desk finally. “Sit down.”

Why didn’t I say that? Why don't
this man and I talk together like those

THE INTRUDER

93

doubled idiota back at the Station?

The observation gave him comfort.
Complete and absolute duplication of
identity was a horrible thing. Perhaps,
after all, there was a difference.

“I suppose we should call each other
something,” said the man behind the
desk. “How about ‘Number One’ and
‘Number Two’?”

“You are ‘Number One’, I presume,”
said Baldvein,

The other shrugged with an exagger-
ated indifference that somewdiat* irri-
tated. The desk intercom chose that
moment to tinkle discreetly. “Mr. Arm-
bruster would like to see you, sir,” said
the voice of a secretary.

The man behind the desk made a
gesture, and after a moment the tall,
lanky head of Transstellar’s Legal De-
partment stalked in. On seeing the two
Baldwins lie stopped in mid-stride.

“Do your gawking later,” said Num-
ber One acidly. “I want to know how
Transstellar stands on this thing.”

Armbruster’s jaw closed with a snap.
His face had paled at first; now it col-
ored. His eyes darted from one to the
other, resting finally on the man behind
the desk.

“Not well,” he said. “We’re responsi-
ble — there’s no way out of that. The
only question is, how much will it cost?
I’m having my men run the data into
our legal analyzer now, to get a pre-
diction.”

“But can the other passengers sue?”
insisted Number One. “The originals
haven’t been harmed in any way — I
should know that! Do the — uh — dupli-
cates have any legal rights? Are they
actually people?'’

Baldwin jumped up from his chair.
Crystal clear, he knew the thought be-
hind that question.

“There’ll be no discrimination against
the duplicates!”

“That’s right,” said Armbruster, his
eyes shifting rapidly. “I’ve already got
a partial result from our analyzer, and
the prediction is that the doubles will

have equal rights.”

“Then we’re in trouble,” said Number
One grimly.

“Yes,” agreed the lawyer. “Thei’e
will be questions of property rights, le-
gal responsibilities — of identity itself.”

“Then we’ve got to settle with every
one of them,” said Baldwin. “Out of
court, and fast ! Before they start really
feeling their losses.”

“You’re working on them?” said
Number One.

“Y''s,” said the lawyei’. “Buf it’s no
use having them sign anything till their
legal status is established. The Su-
preme Analyzer in Washington should
come through with a decision sometime
today.”

“Then get the machinery moving!”
snapped Number One. “Soon as the
Supreme Analyzer’s decision comes in,
report directly to me.”

A FTER Armbruster had gone, Bald-
^ win spent five minutes carefully
avoiding the eyes of Number One. He
felt sick, collapsed inside. For the first
time, he was on the outside looking in.
Another man had taken over his life.

A chair squeaked. Number One had
turned to stare out of the w'indow, his
face immobile in profile. It was the
face of a stranger. Baldwin tried, but
could not think of it as his own. An
oppressive tension filled the room like
a stifling mist.

“Have you seen Lily?” asked Bald-
win finally.

“I called her up. I told her it was a
hoax and she shouldn’t pay attention to
any rumors. She said, ‘Golly, that
makes me a bigamist, doesn’t it ?’ ”

r/M.vt like Liljj, thought Baldwin ! . .
Soiiietinie.s xhe doesn't think deeply. He
ached for her, all over. He wanted to
put his head on her shoulder and have
her stroke his hair.

“She must know it’s true by now,” he
said. “Shouldn’t one of us go see her?”

Number One leaned back and closed
his eyes. Baldwin knew what he was

94 STARTLING STORIES

thinking. TlieAj had a wife of only three
months — young and pretty, but only
one!

“How about you?” said Number One,
bi'inging the tips of his fingers together
slowly. “Why don’t you go over? lean
stay here at the office and handle
things.”

Baldwin laughed a hard, bitter laugh
like the bark of a dog. He understood
perfectly. A wife was only a wife, but
this office was the control center of
Baldwin Transstellar — the throne
room of an empire! It was not an even
trade !

“No,” he said coldly. “We’ll stay to-
gether until the legal mess is straight-
ened out.”

“As you wish,” said Number One.
“Armbruster should be coming through
with a complete prediction any minute.
Then we’ll know what to expect.”

“You realize,” said Baldwin carefully,
“that any decision of the Supreme Ana-
lyzer applies also to us.”

“Of course. But we can work that out
later.”

At that moment Armbruster came in.
His thin face M'ore a look of relief.

“It’s what we wanted — what we
had to have,” he exulted.

“Well?” snapped Baldwin, feeling ir-
ritation w'hen he realized Number One
had spoken the same word, perfectly
synchronized.

‘‘Both of the doubles will be non-legal
entities as far as possible, until some
means of permanently ' telling them
afjart is established. There’ll be a time-
limit, of course — maybe a couple of
days.”

“What happens after the time-limit?”
asked Number One.

“Nothing, if the doubles get together
before then and get themselves legally
identified. They’ll have to agree on
some division of assets and responsibil-
ities, of course.”

“And if they don’t?” prompted
Baldwin.

“They’ll be identified somehow and

declared separate legal entities. They’ll
be able to sue one another — and us!”

“After only two days!” cried Number
One, jumping up. “Armbruster, you’re
an idiot! That isn’t enough time to
reach any agreements !”

“I can’t dictate to the Analyzer,” said
Armbruster wearily. “I can only ask for
a ruling. Besides, nothing can be done
until the doubles can be legally told
apart. That time-limit may be the
thing that will save us.”

“How?”

“This whole thing has to go through
fast! If just one of those doubles real-
izes the power he has over us, before
we get him bought off, we’re in real
trouble.”

“What power, Armbruster?” prompt-
ed Baldwin.

“Well — ” the lawyer had the man-
ner of a man w'alking on blistered feet.
“Every one of the passengers had suf-
fered a very personal loss due to the
accident. A loss of identity. If one of
them enters a suit against us on that
angle, I think the Analyzer will throw
the case to a human court. I entered
the data in our own analyzer, and the
decision was ‘indeterminate’.”

“Indeterminate !”

Armbruster nodded, his face pale.
“You know what that means.”

Baldwin knew, and the knowledge
made him ill. There was a deep-running
popular feeling that the Ultrabeam
Transport system should belong to the
public. Any one of the forty-two pos-
sible lawsuits, if thrown to a human
court, could break the company !

“All right, we’ll settle,” said Number
One grimly.

“How much can I offer?”

“Up to a million apiece,” said Number
One. “If that fails, there are other
measures.”

“Other measures,” echoed Baldwin
softly.

T ILY’S voice over the phone was just
as he remembered it.

95

THE INTRUDER

“Both of you are coming home?” she
said, a faint edge perceptible in the
sugar of her voice. “That’ll be just
twice as nice, won’t it?”

“Yes, darling,” said Baldwin. “I
wanted to prepare you for the shock. It
is quite a shock, believe me. But the
three of us have to get together
before — ”

“Before we become laughing stocks,
that’s what!” cried Lily, and now' the
edge was definitely there, cutting freely.
“A million people have been here today,
and they’re all laughing at me — at us — ”

“There, there,” soothed Baldwin. “Af-
ter all, it isn’t as though you’d lost me,
is it?”

“Lost you! I don’t care if — ”

“Darling, I haven’t time to talk now,”
Baldwin cut in. “I’ll see you in a half
an hour.”

The phone clicked dead. Baldwin kept
his face expressionless, because Num-
ber One was looking at him.

“What did she say?”

“She’s mad. You know Lily.”

Darkness had fallen by the time they
took off in the sleek, chauffeur-driven
aircar. As Baldwin watched the shift-
ing, varicolored lights of the city fade
in the distance, he felt utterly home-
less and lonely. The half-hour ride home
was a period of strained silence, with
each man sunk deep in his own thoughts.

Lily was waiting at the door, dressed
in a sheer, revealing gown with dia-
mond glitters. She’d been crying,
though her eyes were dry now.

“No — oh, no !” she gasped as she saw
them.

Her eyes dilated, then closed, and she
swayed on her feet. Baldwin felt an
impulse to go to her, to comfort her
and whisper something reassuring into
her ear. But he was an instant too late,
because Number One was there exactly
as he would have been. The sight of the
two together staggered him. It oc-
curred to him that little by little the
other was moving into sole possession
of their common identity.

Where would it stop?

If he were no longer T. J. Baldwin,
icho would he be? His mind would not
support such a hypothesis, even for an
instant. He was T. J. Baldwin; he al-
ways had been and always would be.
Number One was the intruder, the un-
known.

He looked on coldly as Lily sobbed
tearlessly on the shoulder of Number
One. They looked ridiculous together,
somehow — an old rake with a young
chorus-girl wife that he’d bought. An
expensive, jeweled thing. He wondered
if she were really crying, or just act-
ing as she sometimes did.

“Break it up !” he said harshly.

They looked up at him as at a stran-
ger. But Baldwin looked only at Lily.
There was no sympathy for him in her
face, only confusion and fear for her-
self. And disbelief. Her limited imagi-
nation could not cope with the facts.

“I forgot you hadn’t met,” said Num-
ber One banally. “Lily, I want you to
meet your other husband.”

A tremendous weariness weighed
down on Baldwin. He felt the shrivel-
ing up of something within him. He
no longer desired anything but a lonely
place and sleep.

“All right,” he said finally. “Make
fools of yourselves if you want to. I’m
going to bed.”

"OALDWIN awoke, not knowing ex-
actly where. He was in bed in a
large room equipped with every com-
fort. After awhile he recognized it as
a guest room in his own house.

A hasty glanc’e at the ceiling clock
told him he’d slept late. A double dose
of sedative had given him a night of
troubled sleep, punctuated by night-
mares.

He was an umcanted guest in Ms own
house. Another man had occupied his
hed.

The thought hammered at him until
he forced it into the background by a
sheer effort of will. Listlessly he dialed

S6 STARTLING STORIES

breakfast on the robot waiter, then sat
back against the pillows to think. After
a completely wasted half hour, he picked
up the phone and got a private connec-
tion with Armbruster.

“I meant to call you,” said the law-
yer in a low voice. “Have you heard it
on the videos?”

“Heard what?”

“The Supreme Analyzer’s decision !
Our prediction was close.”

“Hm-m — so there’s a time-limit on
the identification?”

“It’s shorter than we expected. The
deadline for the voluntary action is
midnight tonight!”

“Tonight ! Will that be enough time ?”

“I’ve got half the passengers ready
to sign off now. We’re doubling their
assets before the accident and adding
a hundred thousand bonus. The others
should come around.”

“How about my — uh — the other one?
Is he there at the office now ?”

“Yes, sir,” said Armbruster, almost
in a whisper.

“Is it true that neither of us can
make a move, legally?”

“As far as the law is concerned, you
two don’t exist until midnight tonight.
You’re supposed to report to the local
court for identification — ”

“Then we have to work througli prox-
ies of the Company? Through yoii,
Armbruster?”

“Yes, sir — until — ”

“All right, then. Permit no action on
the part of the other one. Understand?
Settle with the other passengers as
soon as you can, but accept no orders
from him."

Armbruster made a choking sound.
Immediately afterward, Baldwin heard
the faint tinkle of an intercom at the
other end, and hung up. At that mo-
ment he felt almost as sorry for Arm-
bruster as for himself.

He leaned back against the pillows,
closed his eyes and tried to think.

Should he go to the office, meet Num-
ber One, and report for legal separation

of identity? No. That seemed wrong,
somehow. It didn’t solve anything.

Should he go downstairs and see
Lily? A coldness settled over him at
the thought. He felt a complete lack of
desire for her.

Why leave the room at all, then?
In it he was safe and self-sufficient for
the time being. And he needed rest. He
could lock the door from his bedside;
no one could disturb him . . . Somewhat
calmed by this thought, he rolled over
and tried to sleep again.

|3UT sleep would not come . . . Mid-
night tonight, Armbruster had said
... It was easy to see why the time
had been made so short: there was no
enforcible human law that covered ab-
solutely identical persons ; therefore the
separation of the doubles had to be ef-
fected immediately. Baldwin saw the
justice of it in every case except his
own — after all, wasn’t Transtellar mak-
ing good the losses of the others?

Almost on a subconscious level his
thoughts worked toward a disturbing
but inevitable conclusion . . . Transtel-
lar was compensating the other victims
of the accident by doubling their assets.

But he was Transtellar. Who would
compensate him?

With a grim certainty Baldwin knew
that joint-ownership of the Company
with his double was impossible. There
was no such thing as accepting the loss
of one’s possessions, the setback of all
one’s life’s aims, without a struggle.
The only acceptable solution was win-
ner take all.

Yet, how could he possibly win? By
what trick, legal or otherwise, could he
obtain undisputed possession of his o^vTl
property, a right to live his own life?
In this game the loser would always
have a countermove, for he icouhl then
he the victim of uncompensated los.ses
and could sue! It was an insoluble stale-
mate, unless —

He was suddenly wide awake, shiver-
ing. A very disturbing possibility be-

THE INTRUDER 97

gan to eat its way into his brain. An
unpleasant thought, involving a nause-
ating self-revelation. His mind recoiled
at it, but he couldn’t ignore it.

He looked about the room with new
eyes nov,^ It was still a refuge, but not
an impregnable one. The window faced
open air; a locked door could be forced
. . . Hurriedly he got up and started
dressing.

The house was silent, and he met no
one on his way to the basement level.
This was the crucial step. If he were
fii’st, if he hadn’t been anticipated, he
had a good chance!

The door of the gun-room opened
silently under his hand, revealing the
rows of sleek hunting rifles he’d saved
from younger days. Neatly stacked on
the shelves were sealed cases of ammu-
nition.

He closed the door and started break-
ing the guns, trying to make as little
rcise as possible. When the once-treas-
ured weapons were twisted and scat-
tered, he took the one he’d set aside
and filled its magazine with clean, oily-
smelling cartridges. Only then did the
frantic haste of his motions abate.

So far the odds were with him!

His exultation was short-lived when
he realized that Number One would
hnow he’d do this ... It was like a
problem in infinite regresses, like the
diminishing images in a hall of mirrors.
Each of them could guess the other’s
probable course of action, and could
modify his own plans accordingly. The
main question was, where to stop modi-
fying and when to act?

"DACK in the locked sanctuary of the
guest room, he put the gun within
easy reach and sat down to wait. The
inaction went against his nature. But
the first move had to come from out-
side — the cards were laid out that way.

He felt safer now, able to think more
clearly . . . He’d always been able to
solve his problems with cold, ruthless
logic. It had been his ruthlessness as

much as his skill at financial manipu-
lations that had enabled him to run a
small inherited fortune up to a control-
ling interest in the Transtellar Corpora-
tion . . . All that seemed long ago and
far away now.

But it explained why he, T. J. Bald-
win, was sitting here in a locked room
with a loaded gun!

Daylight deepened into dusk, and
still he waited. His head ached with a
pounding agony; his stomach howled
its hunger — for food that he could ob-
tain at the touch of a button, but which
he didn’t dare eat! A hundred times
he regretted having decided to wait,
but it was the only course left to him
now . . .

At seven-thirty Lily called him. She
sounded frightened.-

“What are you doing up there?”

“Who told you to ask?”

“He — he hasn’t come home yet. I
can’t reach him at the oifice. I — ”

“You can tell him I’m going out
now!” said Baldwin harshly, and hung
up.

Was it a trick ? Had someone put her
up to calling him, to make sure he was
there ?

He was certain of only one thing: he
had to get out of that room!

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead,
and the heavy gun stuck clammily to
his palms as he opened the door. The
hallway was brightly lighted and empty.
It took all the strength he could mus-
ter in his legs to advance into it. There
were four other rooms opening onto
the hall, and an elevator as well as two
staircases. Baldwin found the switch
that darkened the corridor, then went
soundlessly to a window at one end. He
leaned against the cold glass, shivering.

The sky was overcast, reflecting redly
the lights of the city in the distance.
Air traffic moved like sv/irls of sparks
as commuters drove homeward from the
city. On the shadowy lawn below, noth-
ing moved.

Ten-thirty ! The luminous dial of

98 STARTLING STORIES

Baldwin’s watch stared mockingly at
him in the darkness. Why was nothing
happening? The inaction was sapping
his strength, leaving him helpless. Yet
he had to wait. The other must know
that midnight was too late for both
of them . . .

It was past eleven when he heard
the sound, a soft rushing as of bat
wings beating in the darkness. An air-
car!

'T'HERE were no lights, but the sound
came nearer from above and faded
out on the other side of the house.
Cursing himself for a fool, Baldwin ran
to the window at the other end of the
corridor. There he could see the metal-
lic gleam of the car on the lawn below,
but nothing else. He fought back an
impulse to fire blindly into the shadows.

What now ? He’d been outguessed
once — he should have known the aircar
wouldn’t come in the usual way. A
dozen ways in which he could be trapped
suddenly occurred to him.

The decision to act gave him new
strength. His mind worked rapidly,
trying to probe the end of the infinite
regress, to anticipate the next move . . .

He was halfway down a service stair-
way, moving cautiously in the pitch
darkness, when he heard the gentle
opening and closing of a door below
him.

He stood frozen to the spot, making
no sound. The man at the bottom of the
stair had a gun. There was no doubt-
ing the identity of their conclusions
now. The same mental process had
brought them to the same spot in time
and space.

Only, this time he ivas first!

Tensely he waited. The darkness was
impenetrable, but the cautious footsteps
came nearer . . . He could almost feel
the warmth of the other’s body when he
filled.

The flash of the gun disclosed the
other’s startled face ; the gunsound was
like a snarl of rage. Baldwin held the

trigger back for continuous firing until
the figure before him melted away. He
followed its clumping progress down
the stairs, firing until the gun was
empty.

He stood reeling for awhile in the
darkness. Then, somehow, his hand
found the light switch, and the soft,
opalescent glow came on without a
sound.

A trail of blood on the stair led his
eyes to a crumpled figure at the bot-
tom. Already the body was cooling in
death, the open-eyed face staring up-
ward . . .

Baldwin’s face.

For an interminable time he stood
there. Something inside him twisted
and writhed and finally solidified; and
then he began to cringe.

It was his own face in death . . . That
pitiful heap at the bottom of the stair
was he.

What his mind had refused to believe
while the other was an active enemy
to be fought, it now accepted in a flood.
The brain behind that death-mask had
carried his ideas, his aspirations. His
own life, too, could end like this and
would look like this to an outsider.

His heart pounded against his ribs as
if trying to add its contents to the
widening pool at his feet. With a super-
human effort he tore himself loose from
the incredible fascination of the thing
on the floor. He was only vaguely con-
scious of other people about, of screams
. . . He ran out onto the cool grass of
the lawn, stumbled and fell, and didn’t
have the strength to rise again.

Sometime later the police found him
there, talking to himself in the darkness.

^‘^OLD-BLOODED murder !” the voice
boomed. “This man so hated and
feared his own motives that he com-
mitted murder rather than face him-
self! Was ever a crime so clearly pre-
meditated — so deserving of punish-
ment?”

Baldwin woke with a start, and knew

THE INTRUDER 99

he had been dreaming again. His body
was stiff, the bedclothes soaked with
perspiration.

He was in his own bed again. The
doctors had told him he was all right.
Lily had cried over him and stroked
his hair, sobbing, “Poor dear, poor
dear.” Even the police guard outside
his door had oozed unctuous respect.

There was no doubt about it: he was
once more the one and only T. J.
Baldwin.

He pronounced the name to himself
vvith a spasm of self-loathing. If only
he could be rid of the nightmare! The
accusing voice that spoke out of a dead
face that was like his own . . .

Fighting an overwhelming Aveariness,
he rolled over in bed and pushed the
buzzer. Armbruster came in almost
immediately; he had been waiting out-
side the door for over an hour.

“Well?” snapped Baldwin.

“I couldn’t do anything,” said the
pale-faced lawyer. “You’re going to be
indicted for murder!”

“But the time-limit wasn’t up! You
said that legally the two of us didn’t
e.xist — ”

“Unless certain measures were tak-
en,” Armbruster said wearily. “Well,
he took them . . . He went and got him-
self identified !”

"DALDWIN closed his eyes. Of course!

That was what he would have done
in the other’s place, if he had thought of
it . . . Suddenly he could see how it
had happened.

“You talked him into it, Armbruster.”

“I told you, too — ”

“All right,” said Baldwin, sighing al-
most with relief at his decision. “Go
away.”

“But we have to — ”

“Get out!”

After Armbruster had gone, he
pushed the button that locked the door.
He swallowed the sedative tablets one
by one until he lost count. His last
thought was an almost vengeful sense
of justice.

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He'd reach the Moon
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F or as long as he could remem-
ber, Mack Everts had desired but
one thing in life. He had wanted it
more than anything else, and it became
an obsession with him.

“And now it’s become a reality,’’ he
breathed.

He looked at the moon in the forward
viewscreen; it was clear and crystal
bright, like a silver quarter on black
velvet.

The man in the moon looked back at
him. They smiled.

“We’re going to be great friends, you
and I,” Mack said to it. “Great friends.’’

Beneath his feet the metal floor of the
rocket vibrated, quivering with the
monotonous pulsing of the atomic en-
gines that were now thrusting him
across the brief interval between Earth
and her satellite.

The viewscreen hazed as moisture
crept into Mack Everts’ eyes, and the
silver quarter shimmered as if im-
mersed in a pool of glittering water.

“I’m going to the moon,” he whis-
pered into the artificial atmosphere of
the cabin. “The first man to go to the
moon.”

It had been a long, hard struggle, full

of disheartening setbacks, of friends
who did not understand and enemies
who did. All his life he’d had to battle
the physical difficulties — the long hours
spent working so he could study, the
long hours studying so he could learn,
the sweating and the toiling trying to
get material, and then the sweating and
the toiling to put the material together.
He didn’t mind that so much; it was
something you could get your teeth into,
something you could battle with tooth
and nail, slide rule and blueprint. But
the ridicule, the jests made in “inno-
cent” fun by otherwise well-nieaning
persons — that was something else.

For as long as he could remember.
Mack Everts had wanted to go to the
moon; and for as long as he could re-
member, he had been ridiculed and
made fun of. But now — now he’d show
them.

The moon was slowly filling the view-
screen with its bulk, and Mack Everts’
mind filled itself with indescribable ex-
hiliaration. The soft thrum of the en-
gines raced the rapid beating of his
heart.

It was strange, he thought, that peo-
ple still viewed space travel as some-
100

WELCOME

thing more suitable to fiction than re-
ality, even in the year 1988. Probably
the government’s expensive failures had
something to do with that. Even now,
their only accomplishment w^as sending
unmanned rockets to the moon, trying
to brake their fall by remote control,
and ' failing. There v^ere many volun-
teers, of course, but public opinion was
against the project as it was, and if
another manned rocket knocked holes in
both the moon and the crew, that would
be the end.

Maybe in a few years the govern-
ment’s experiments would be complete,
and rocket travel would be considered
safe enough to include a human being.
The time was swiftly growing ripe for
it.

Meanwhile, Mack Everts wasn’t wait-
ing .

For the hundredth time he went
about the small cabin, his magnetized
heels clanking softly against the metal
floor. It was a small rocket — he’d had
no use for a large one — but large
enough to amaze even him that he alone
could have built it. With the help of
friends, it could have been completed
much sooner; but friends gave unwel-
come advice and had no desire to waste
precious time in such a ridiculous task
as building a moon rocket.

So he’d done it himself. All of it.
He had drawn the plans and charted
the trajectory.

Every single rivet he had personally
placed there.

It took a long time in the doing, but
he had done it.

Yes, it had taken a long time. Thirty-
seven years of a thirty-eight year life.
For even in his cradle he had reached
for that shiny something that lingered
just beyond grasp, and was surprised
and angry that he could not pluck it
from the air like a circus balloon on
a string.

It is true that many children reach for
the moon ; but Mack Everts did not out-
grow the desire.

TO LUNA 101

Tj^VEN now, as it grew large and full
before him, as face markings be-
came light and shadow rimming deep
craters and empty seas — even now, he
wanted to reach out and hold it in his
hands, gently as though it were a large,
scarred soap bubble.

He had often lain on cool grass dur-
ing warm summer evenings and
watched the moon climb hand over
hand across the diamond-set heavens
and dreamed he was out in space beside
it, drifting weightlessly, feeling the
soft murmur of stars about him.

“Someday,” he’d said, “I’m going up
there. To the moon.”

In 1960, when he was ten years old,
he made this announcement to a close
circle of friends. They laughed at himx,
derided him, for derision was then the
style. A space rocket bearing three Air
Force personnel had just exploded for
no discernible reason upon reaching the
moon’s surface, and the public was in-
dignant. After that, the project dropped
from the limelight almost to obscurity,
and further appropriations were inade-
quate even for test rockets.

The children had danced around him,
singing :

“Mackie Everts went to the moon,

“Mackie Everts fell very soon . . .”

Sullenly he’d turned away, hands in
pockets. “I’ll show you,” he muttered,
hurt and angry. “I’ll show all of you.”

Behind him, their derisive cries came :
“. . . And all the king’s horses
“And all the king’s men
“Couldn’t put Mackie together again !”

With the sound of their rhyme haunt-
ing him he returned to his work.

As the rocket went through space.
Mack Everts thought about those chil-
dren and of the hai’d-headed mundane
individuals they’d grown up to be, peo-
ple with two feet and a granite head
firmly and immovably wedded to equally
solid ground, persons with thoughts go-
ing no further than their noses. He
thought about them and turned each of
their names over on his lips, as though

102 STARTLING STORIES

tasting the sound it made. They wanted
to be shown, did they? Well, he was
showing them now !

TT HADN’T been easy, though. It

hadn’t been easy at all. For hardly a
moment of his life had been spent in any-
thing other than preparation for the
time he would blast off for Luna. Even
in pre-adolescence, he’d hurried from
school to isolate himself in his room
and study books on astronomy and phy-
sics and chemistry and mechanical de-
sign and a thousand other things he
might need in preparation for this
greatest of all adventures. Many long
afternoons he would spend in the li-
brary poring over volumes of technical
data, much of which he could at that
time understand only dimly at best.
While other children played, he studied,
bending all efforts toward one final
goal.

He’d gone through high school in
two and a half years, with a number of
credits far exceeding those necessary
to graduate. His marks were low,
sometimes barely passing, for all his
learning was directed toward one dom-
inant purpose, and he tried as best he
could to ignore arbitrary educational re-
quirements ; he had enough to learn
without bothering with superfluities.

He went to college, taking courses

without credit, desiring only the knowl-
edge he could obtain from them. Layer
upon layer of knowledge filled out the
pattern he had set for himself, fusing
itself into a larger, straighten arrow
pointing toward the goal that domin-
ated his life.

No, it hadn’t been easy at all ; but fi-
nally it had paid off, and Mack Everts
was a rocket expert who could be com-
pared favoi’ably with anyone in the
world.

“If you’re so damned set on moon
rockets,” a friend said once, “why don’t
you get in on the government proj-
ect?”

Mack shook his head, slowly but with
infinite firmness. No, since their acci-
dent with the Air Force men, the gov-
ernment was sending only -unmanned
rockets to the moon. Besides that, this
was his battle. It was a personal thing.
He’d fought against tremendous odds
alone, and now he would continue alone.
He’d said he would be the first to set
foot on the moon, and now he’d do it
himself or die in the attempt. He, not
the government, would be the new
Columbus.

Mack Everts strapped himself into a
soft-padded chair and with glad eyes
watched the moon hurtling to meet
him. His fingers ran certainly over the
controls. The rocket ship decelerated,

THE ADVENTURES OF

IT SMELLS GRAND

IT PACKS RIGHT

I

v CUT TO PACK lOEALLyi

WELCOME

and conflicting forces pulled him into
the seat. It wouldn’t be long now.
Minutes. Only minutes, and then sec-
onds, and then parts of seconds. . . .

During those last few minutes. Mack
Everts became a machine, precise and
without emotion. Neurons clicked noise-
lessly, giving silent directions, and
hands obeyed, quickly, mechanically,
without hesitation.

The rocket settled on a long tail of
orange flame . . .

Suddenly it was over, and silence
crept forwai'd.

For a long moment, he sat very still.
Then the tension burst suddenly from
him like a released spring, and he
wanted to laugh and shout and cry all
at once.

“The moon,” he shouted ecstatically.
“I’m on the moon! I made it. The first
man on the moon!”

He dragged a reconverted diving suit
from a wall and eagerly pulled himself
into it. He opened the door, and oxy-
gen swept from the small cabin, stir-
ring up yellow-grey dust that fell
slowly.

Mack Everts stepped forward like a
man in a dream, his heart hammering
within him.

“Mackie Everts went to the moon,

“Mackie Everts fell very soon. . .

His fist clenched. He’d show them.

TO LUNA 103

He’d show them all. He strode onto
the cold, hard surface of the satellite,
crumbling ageless rocks beneath his
boots. He felt light and airy, and his
gaze swept chalky cliffs and crags and
pits as though he owned them person-
ally. It was quiet, lifeless, like a tomb.
Overhead, stars shone like fire.

“. . . And all the khig’s horses. . . .”

Mack fell to his knees. “Here, in the
sight of God and the Universe, I claim
this satellite, Luna. . . .”

“. . . and all the king's men. . . .”

Jubilantly, Mack got to his feet and
turned back to the rocket

“. . . couldn't put Mackie. . . .”

He stared, his features contorting in
disbelief.

The rocket ship was smashed,
wrecked, a hopeless tangle of steel and
glass and wire and bones and flesh and
blood. Behind it was the long furrow it
had plowed into the moon’s surface.

For a long time klack Everts stared
at it, not understanding; and then over
the crest of a hill came a crowd of
people, their whispers crying into the
airless silence.

In the lead were three men in tattered
Air Force uniforms, their faces grave
and welcoming.

Mack began to cry.

Overhead, the Earth looked down, un-
comprehending. • ® e

UMCLE WALTER

IT SMOKES SWEET

joy you VE dreamed op.

_ VOU'LU AG-ftEE!

IT CANT BITE!

SIR WALTER RALEI&HS BLEND OF CHOICE
KENTUCKV BURLEYS IS EXTRA-A&ED TO
GUARD AGAINST TONGUE SITE. STAYS
LIT TO THE LAST PUFF. AND NEVER
LEAVES A SOGGY HEEL IN YOUR PIPE.

a novelet by LEIGH BRACKETT

M e came alone into the wine-
shop, wrapped in a dark red
cloak, with the cowl drawn
over his head. He stood for a moment
by the doorway and one of the slim
dark predatory women who live in those
places went to him, with a silvery chim-
ing from the little bells that were al-
most all she wore.

I saw her smile up at him. And then,
suddenly, the smile became fixed and

something happened to her eyes. She
was no longer looking at the cloaked
man but through him. In the oddest
fashion— it was as though he had be-
come invisible.

She went by him. Whether she passed
some word along or not I couldn’t tell
but an empty space widened around the
stranger. And no one looked at him.
They did not avoid looking at him. They
simply refused to see him.

THE LAST DAYS OF

Shandakor

An Eaithman finds love and tragedy in a
long-dead city of ancient Mars that denies death

He began to walk slowly across the
crowded room. He was very tall and he
moved with a fluid, powerful grace that
was beautiful to watch. Beople drifted
out of his way, not seeming to, but doing
it. The air was thick with nameless
smells, shrill with the laughter of
women.

Two tall barbarians, far gone in wine,
were carrying on some intertribal feud
and the yelling crowd had made room
for them to fight. There was a silver
pipe and a drum and a double-banked
harp making old wild music. Lithe
brown bodies leaped and whirled
through the laughter and the shouting
and the smoke.

The stranger walked through all this,
alone, untouched, unseen. He passed
close to where I sat. Perhaps because I,
of all the people in that place, not only
saw him but stared at him, he gave me
a glance of black eyes from under the
shadow of his cowl — eyes like blown
coals, bright with suffering and rage.

I caught only a glimpse of his muffled

105

face. The merest glimpse — but that was
enough. Why did he have to show his
face to me in that loine-shop in Barra-
kesh?

He passed on. There was no space in
the shadowy corner where he went but
space was made, a circle of it, a moat
between the stranger and the crowd. He
sat down. I saw him lay a coin on the
outer edge of the table. Presently a
serving wench came up, picked up the
coin and set down a cup of wine. But it
was as if she waited on an empty table.

I turned to Kardak, my head drover,
a Shunni with massive shoulders and
uncut hair braided in an intricate tribal
knot. “What’s all that about?” I asked.

Kardak shrugged. “Who knows?”
He started to rise. “Come, JonRoss,
It is time we got back to the serai.”

“We’re not leaving for hours yet. And
don’t lie to me. I’ve been on Mars a long
time. What is that man? Where does
he come from?”

Barrakesh is the gateway between
north and south. Long ago, when there

108 STARTLING STORIES

were oceans in equatorial and southern
Mars, when Valkis and Jekkara were
proud seats of empire and not thieves’
dens, here on the edge of the northern
Drylands the great caravans had come
and gone to Barrakesh for a thousand
thousand years. It is a place of strang-
ers.

In the time-eaten streets of rock you
see tall Keshi hillmen, nomads from the
high plains of Upper Shun, lean dark
men from the south who barter away
the loot of forgotten tombs and temples,
cosmopolitan sophisticates up from
Kahora and the trade cities, where
there are spaceports and all the ap-
purtenances of modern civilization.

The red-cloaked stranger was none of
these.

A GLIMPSE of a face — I am a plane-
tary anthropologist. I was sup-
posed to be charting Martian ethnology
and I was doing it on a fellowship grant
I had wangled from a Terran university
too ignorant to know that the vastness
of Martian history makes such a proj-
ect hopeless.

I was in Barrakesh, gathering an out-
fit preparatory to a year’s study of the
tribes of Upper Shun. And suddenly
there had passed close by me a man with
golden skin and un-Martian black eyes
and a facial structure that belonged to
no race I knew. I have seen the carven
faces of fauns that were a little like it.

Kardak said again, “It is time to go,
JonRoss!”

I looked at the stranger, drinking his
wine in silence and alone. “Very well,
ni ask him.”

Kardak sighed. “Earthmen,” he said,
“are not given much to wisdom.” He
turned and left me.

I crossed the room and stood beside
the sti’anger. In the old courteous High
Martian they speak in all the Low-Canal
towns I asked permission to sit.

Those raging, suffering eyes met
mine. There was hatred in them, and
scorn, and shame. “What breed of
human are you?”

“I am an Earthman.”

He said the name over as though he
had heard it before and was trying to
remember. “Earthman. Then it is as
the winds have said, blowing across the
desert — that Mars is dead and men
from other worlds defile her dust.” He
looked out over the wine-shop and all
the people who would not admit his
presence. “Change,” he whispered.
“Death and change and the passing
away of things.”

The muscles of his face drew tight.
He drank and I could see now that he
had been drinking for a long time, for
days, perhaps for weeks. There was a
quiet madness on him.

“Why do the people shun you ?”

“Only a man of Earth w'ould need to
ask,” he said and made a sound of
laughter, very dry and bitter.

I was thinking, A netv race, an un-
knoivn race! I was thinking of the fame
that sometimes comes to men who dis-
cover a new thing, and of a Chair I
might sit in at the University if I added
one bright unheard-of piece of the
shadowy mosaic of Martian history. I
had had my share of wine and a bit
more. That* Chair looked a mile high
and made of gold.

The stranger said softly, “I go from
place to place in this wallow of Barra-
kesh and everywhere it is the same. I
have ceased to be.” His white teeth glit-
tered for an instant in the shadow bf the
cowl. “They were wiser than I, my
people. When Shandakor is dead, we
are dead also, whether our bodies live or
not.”

“Shandakor?” I said. It had a sound
of distant bells.

“How should an Earthman know?
Yes, Shandakor! Ask of the men of
Kesh and the men of Shun! Ask the
kings of Mekh, who are half around the
world! Ask of all the men of Mai's —
they have not forgotten Shandakor ! But
they will not tell you. It is a bitter shame
to them, the memory and the name.”

He stared out across the turbulent
throng that filled the room and flowed

THE LAST DAYS

over to the noisy street outside. “And I
am here among them — lost.”

“Shandakor is dead?”

“Dying. There were three of us who
did not want to die. We came south
across the desert — one turned back, one
perished in the sand, I am here in Bar-
rakesh.” The metal of the wine-cup bent
between his hands.

I said, “And you regret your com-
ing.”

“I should have stayed and died with
Shandakor. I know that now. But I
cannot go back.”

“Why not?” I was thinking how the

OF SHANDAKOR 107

me, “What does an Earthman want in
Shandakor?”

I told him. He laughed. “You stu%
men,” he said and laughed again, so
that the red cloak rippled.

“If you want to go back I’ll take you.
If you don’t, tell me where the city lies
and I’ll find it. Your race, your city,
should have their place in history.”

He said nothing but the wine had
made me very shrewd and I could guess
at what was going on in the stranger’s
mind. I got up.

“Consider it,” I told him. “You can
find me at the serai by the northetn

TyiadJbA fiainijih - ■ — - ■

S OME few decades ago an artist was only a man or woman who painted pictures. The
word was not applied to sculptors, to poets, to composers, to actors, to authors. You
painted pictures or you weren’t an artist and that was that.

Fortunately the term was expanded to include anyone in any sort of work who does his
job in artistic fashion — whether that work is juggling cigar boxes like the late W. C. Fields
or stealing bases like Tyrus Raymond Cobb. And authors, since fiction-writing is today
rated as an art, are generally awarded the term.

Most of the time they don’t rate it — for the artist must convey feeling through the
creation of an illusion that casts a tight web around the beholder and impels him into the
mood the artist desires. It is a very special magic and only a very few authors have
acquired its mastery.

Leigh Brackett is certainly one of them. She can cast a mood-net more unerringly than
the most expert fisherman, can paint word-pictures that strike correspondingly vivid
images in the mind and imagination of the reader. Using the same keyboards employed
by less gifted authors she can evoke high tragedy, ecstasy, the sense and vision of un-
bearable beauty or decay or horror.

We have a hunch that this story finds her at her very best. There may be some who will
say that it is not properly science fiction. To which, as in the case of Ray Bradbury,
we can only counter, “Who cares?” — THE EDITOR.

name John Ross ivould look, inscribed
in golden letters on the scroll of the dis-
coverers.

“The desert is wide, Earthman. Too
wide for one alone.”

And I said, “1 have a caravan. I am
going north tonight.”

A light came into his eyes, so strange
and deadly that I was afraid. “No,” he
whispered. “No!”

I sat in silence, looking out across the
crowd that had forgotten me as well,
because I sat with the stranger. A new
race, an unknown city. And I was
drunk.

After a long while the stranger asked

gate until the lesser moon is up.' Then
I’ll be gone.”

“Wait.” His fingers fastened on my
wrist. They hurt. I looked into his face
and I did not like what I saw there.
But, as Kardak had mentioned, I was
not given much to wisdom.

The stranger said, “Your men will
not go beyond the Wells of Karthedon.”

“Then we’ll go without them.”

A long long silence. Then he said, “So
be it.”

I knew what he was thinking as
plainly as though he had spoken the
words. He was thinking that I was only
an Earthman and that he would kill n!@

108 STARTLING STORIES

when we came in sight of Shandakor.

II

M HE caravan tracks branch off at
the Wells of Karthedon. One goes west-
ward into Shun and one goes north
through the passes of Outer Kesh. But
there is a third one, m.ore ancient than
the others. It goes toward the east and
it is never used. The deep rock wells
are dry and the stone-built shelters have
vanished under the rolling dunes. It is
not until the track begins to climb the
mountains that there are even mem-
ories.

Kardak refused politely to go beyond
the Wells. He would wait for me, he
said, a certain length of time, and if I
came back we would go on into Shun. If
I didn’t — well, his full pay was left in
charge of the local headman. He would
collect it and go home. He had not liked
having the stranger with us. He had
doubled his price.

In all that long march up from Bar-
rakesh I had not been able to get a word
out of Kardak or the m^en concerning
Shandakor. The stranger had not
spoken either. He had told me his name
— Gorin — and nothing more. Cloaked,
and cowled he rode alone and brooded.
His private devils were still with him
and he had a new one now — impatience.
He would have ridden us all to death if
I had let him.

So Gorin and I went east alone from
Karthedon, with two led animals and all
the water we could carry. And now I
could not hold him back.

“There is no time to stop,” he said.
“The days are running out. There is no
time!”

When we reached the mountains we
had only three animals left and when
we crossed the first ridge we were afoot
and leading the one remaining beast
which carried the dwindling water
skins.

We were following a road now. Part-
ly hewn and partly worn it led up and
over the mountains, those naked lean-

ing mountains that were full of silence
and peopled only with the shapes of red
rock that the wind had carved.

“Armies used to come this way,” said
Gorin. “Kings and caravans and beg-
gars and human slaves, singers and
dancing girls and the embassies of
princes. This was the road to Shanda-
kor.”

And we went along it at a madman’s
pace.

The beast fell in a slide of rock and
broke its neck and we carried the last
water skin between us. It was not a
heavy burden. It grew lighter and then
wa’’ almost gone.

One afternoon, long before sunset,
Gorin said abruptly, “We will stop
here.”

The road went steeply up before us.
There was nothing to be seen or heard.
Gorin sat down in the drifted dust. I
crouched down too, a little distance
from him. I watched him. His face was
hidden and he did not speak.

The shadows thickened in that deep
and narrow way. Overhead the strip of
sky flared saffron and then red — and
then the bright cruel stars came out.
The wind worked at its cutting and
polishing of stone, muttering to itself,
an old and senile wind full of dissatis-
faction and complaint. There was the
dry faint click of falling pebbles.

The gun felt cold in my hand, covered
with my cloak. I did not want to use it.
But I did not want to die here on this
silent pathway of vanished armies and
caravans and kings.

A shaft of greenish moonlight crept
down between the walls. Gorin stood
up.

“Twice now I have followed lies.
Here I am met at last by truth.”

I said, “I don’t understand you.”

“I thought I could escape the destruc-
tion. That was a lie. Then I thought I
could return to share it. That too was
a lie. Now I see the truth. Shandakor
is dying. I fled from that dying, which
is the end of the city and the end of my
race. The shame of flight is on me and

THE LAST DAYS

I can never go back.”

“What will you do?”

“I will die here.”

“And I?”

“Did you think,” asked Gorin softly,
“that I would bring an alien creature in
to watch the end of Shandakor?”

T MOVED first. I didn’t know what
•*- weapons he might have, hidden under
that dark red cloak. I threw myself over
on the dusty rock. Something went past
my head with a hiss and a rattle and a
flame of light and then I cut the legs
from under him and he fell down for-
ward and I got on top of him, very fast.

He had vitality. I had to hit his head
twice against the rock before I could
take out of his hands the vicious little
instrument of metal rods. I threw it
far away. I could not feel any other
weapons on him except a knife and I
took that. too. Then I got up.

I said, “I will carry you to Shan-
dakor.”

He lay still, draped in the tumbled
folds of his cloak. His breath made a
harsh sighing in his throat. “So be it.”
And then he asked for water.

I went to where the skin lay and
picked it up, thinking that there was
perhaps a cupful left. I didn’t hear him
move. What he did was done very
silently with a sharp-edged ornament.
I brought him the water and it was al-
ready over. I tried to lift him up. His
eyes looked at me with a curiously bril-
liant look. Then he whispered three
words, in a language I didn’t know, and
died. I let him dowm again.

His blood had poured out across the
dust. And even in the moonlight I
could see that it was not the color of
human blood.

I crouched there for a long while,
overcome with a strange sickness. Then
I reached out and pushed that red cowl
back to bare his head. It was a beauti-
ful head. I had never seen it. If I had, I
would not have gone alone with Gorin
into the mountains. I would have under-
stood many things if I had seen it and

OF SHANDAKOR 109

not for fame nor money would I have
gone to Shandakor.

His skull was narrow and arched and
the shaping of the bones was very fine.
On that skull was a covering of short
curling fibres that had an almost metal-
lic luster in the moonlight, silvery and
bright. They stirred under my hand,
soft silken wires responding of them-
selves to an alien touch. And even as I
took my hand away the luster faded
from them and the texture changed.

When I touched them again they did
not stir. Gorin’s ears were pointed and
there were silvery tufts on the tips of
them. On them and on his forearms and
his breast were the faint, faint memories
of scales, a powdering of shining dust
across the golden skin. I looked at his
teeth and they were not human either.

I knew now why Gorin had laughed
when I told him that I studied men.

It was very still. I could hear the fall-
ing of pebbles and the little stones that
rolled all lonely down the cliffs and the
shift and whisper of dust in the settling
cracks. The Wells of Karthedon were
far away. Too far by several lifetimes
for one man on foot with a cup of water.

I looked at the road that went steep
and narrow on ahead. I looked at Gorin.
The wind was cold and the shaft of
moonlight was growing thin. I did not
want to stay alone in the dark with
Gorin.

I rose and went on along the road
that led to Shandakor.

It was a long climb but not a long
way. The road came out between two
pinnacles of rock. Below that gateway,
far below in the light of the little low
moons that pass so swiftly over Mars,
there was a mountain valley.

Once around that valley there were
great pea’Ks crowned with snow and
crags of black and crimson where the
flying lizards nested, the hawk-lizards
with the red eyes. Below the crags
there were forests, purple and green
and gold, and a black tarn deep on the
valley floor. But when I saw it it was
dead. The peaks had fallen away and

110 STARTLING STORIES

the forests were gone and the tarn was
only a pit in the naked rock.

In the midst of that desolation stood
a fortress city.

There were lights in it, soft lights of
many colors. The outer walls stood up,
black and massive, a barrier against the
creeping dust, and within them was an
island of life. The high towers were not
ruined. The lights burned among them
and there was movement in the streets.

A LIVING city — and Gorin had said
^ that Shandakor was almost dead.

A rich and living city. I did not
understand. But I knew one thing.
Those who moved along the distant
streets of Shandakor were not human.

I stood shivering in that windy pass.
The bright towers of the city beckoned
and there was something unnatural
about all light life in the deathly valley.
And then I thought that human or not
the people of Shandakor might sell me
water and a beast to carry it and I could
get away out of these mountains, back
to the Wells.

The road broadened, winding down
the slope. I walked in the middle of it,
not expecting anything. And suddenly
two men came out of nowhere and bar-
red the way.

I yelled. I jumped backward with my
heart pounding and the sweat pouring
off me. I saw their broadswords glitter
in the moonlight. And they laughed.

They were human. One was a tall red
barbarian from Mekh, which lay to the
east half around Mars. The other was a
leaner browner man from Taarak,
which was farther still. I was scared
and angry and astonished and I asked a
foolish question.

“What are you doing herel”

“We wait,” said the man of Taarak.
He made a circle with his arm to take
in all the darkling slopes around the
valley. “From Kesh and Shun, from all
the countries of the Norlands and the
Marches men have come, to wait. And
you?”

“I’m lost,” I said. “I’m an Earth-

man and I have no quarrel with any-
one.” I was still shaking but now it was
with relief. I would not have to go to
Shandakor. If there was a barbarian
army gathered here it must have sup-
plies and I could deal with them.

I told them what I needed. “I can pay
for them, pay well.”

They looked at each other. '

“Very well. Come and you can bar-
gain with the chief.”

They fell in on either side of me. We
walked three paces and then I was on
my face in the dirt and they were all
over me like two great wildcats. When
they were finished they had everything
I owned except the few articles of cloth-
ing for which they had no use. I got up
again, wiping the blood from my mouth.

“For an outlander,” said the man of
Mekh, “you fight well.” He chinked
my money-bag up and down in his palm,
feeling the weight of it, and then he
handed me the leather bottle that hung
at his side. “Drink,” he told me. “That
much I can’t deny you. But our water
must be carried a long way across these
mountains and we have none to waste
on Earthmen.”

I was not proud. - emptied his bottle
for him. And the man of Taarak said,
smiling, “Go on to Shandakor. Perhaps
they will give you water. ”

“But you’ve taken all my money!”

“They are rich in Shandakor. They
don’t need money. Go ask them for
water.”

They stood there, laughing at some
secret joke of their own, and I did not
like the sound of it. I could have killed
them both and danced on their bodies
but they had left me nothing but my
bare hands to fight with. So presently
I turned and went on and left them
grinning in the dark behind me.

The road led down and out across the
plain. I could feel eyes watching me,
the eyes of the sentinels on the rounding
slopes, piercing the dim moonlight. The
walls of the city began to rise higher
and higher. They hid everything but the
top of one tall tower that had a queer

THE LAST DAYS
squat globe on top of it. Rods of crystal
projected from the globe. It revolved
slowly and the rods sparkled with a sort
of white fire that was just on the edge
of seeing.

A causeway lifted toward the West-
ern Gate. I mounted it, going very slow-
ly, not wanting to go at all. And now
I could see that the gate was open. Open
— and this was a city under siege !

I stood still for some time, trying to
puzzle out what meaning this might
have — an army that did not attack and
a city with open gates. I could not find
a meaning. There were soldiers on the
walls but they were lounging at their
ease under the bright banners. Beyond
the gate many people moved about but
they were intent on their own affairs. I
could not hear their voices.

I crept closer, closer still. Nothing
happened. The sentries did not chal-
lenge me and no one spoke.

You know how necessity can force a
man against his judgment and against
his will?

I entered Shandakor.

Ill

TT HERE was an open space beyond
the gate, a square large enough to hold
an army. Around its edges were the
stalls of merchants. Their canopies
were of rich woven stuffs and the wares
they sold were such things as have not
been seen on Mars for more centuries
than men can remember.

There were fruits and rare furs, the
long-lost dyes that never fade, furnish-
ings carved from vanished woods. There
were spices and wines and exquisite
cloths. In one place a merchant from the
far south offered a ceremonial rug
woven from the long bright hair of
virgins. And it was new.

These merchants were all human.
The nationalities of some of them I
knew. Others I could guess at from
traditional accounts. Some were utterly
unknown.

Of the throngs that moved about

OF SHANDAKOR 111

among the stalls, quite a number were
human also. There were merchant
princes come to barter and there were
companies of slaves on their way to the
auction block. But the others . . .

I stayed where I was, pressed into a
shadowy corner by the gate, and the
chill that was on me was not all from
the night wind.

The golden-skinned silver-crested
lords of Shandakor I knew well enough
fi*om Corin. I say lords because that is
how they bore themselves, walking
proudly in their own place, attended by
human slaves. And the humans who
were not slaves made way for them and
were most deferential as though they
knew that they were greatly favored to
be allowed inside the city at all. The
women of Shandakor were very beauti-
ful, slim golden sprites with their
bright eyes and pointed ears.

And there were others. Slender crea-
tures with great wings, some who were
lithe and furred, some who were hair-
less and ugly and moved with a sinuous
gliding, some so strangely shaped and
colored that I could not even guess at
their possible evolution.

The lost races of Mars-. The ancient
races, of whose pride and power noth-
ing was left but the half-forgotten tales
of old men in the farthest corners of the
planet. Even I, who had made the an-
thropological history of Mars my busi-
ness, had never heard of them except as
the distorted shapes of legend, as satyrs
and giants used to be known on Earth.

Yet here they were in gorgeous trap-
pings, served by naked humans whose
fetters were made of precious metals.
And before them too the merchants
drew aside and bowed.

The lights burned, many-colored —
not the torches and cressets of the Mars
1 knew but cool radiances that fell from
crystal globes. The walls of the build-
ings that rose around the market place
were faced with rare veined marbles
and the fluted towers that crowned
them were inlaid with turquoise and
cinnabar, with amber and jade and the

112

wonderful corals of the
oceans.

The splendid robes and the naked
bodies moved in a swirling pattern
about the square. There was buying and
selb'ng and I could see the mouths of the
people open and shut. The mouths of
the women laughed. But in all that
crowded place there was no sound. No
voice, no scuff of sandal, no chink of
mail. There was only silence, the utter
stillness of deserted places.

I began to understand why there was
no need to shut the gates. No super-
stitious barbarian would venture him-
self into a city peopled by living phan-
toms.

And I — I was civilized. I was, in my
non-mechanical way, a scientist. And
had I not been trapped by my need for
water and supplies I would have run
away right out of the valley. But I had
no place to run to and so I stayed and
sweated and gagged on the acrid taste
of fear.

HAT were these creatures that
made no sound? Ghosts — images —
dreams ? The human and the non-
human, the ancient, the proud, the lost
and forgotten who were so insanely
present — -did they have some subtle
form of life I knew nothing about?
Could they see me as I saw them? Did
they have thought and volition of their
own?

It was the solidity of them, the in-
tense and perfectly prosaic business in
which they were engaged. Ghosts do
not barter. They do not hang jew'eled
necklets upon their women nor argue
about the price of a studded harness.

The solidity and the silence — that
was the worst of it. If there had been
one small living sound . . .

A dying city, Gorin had said. The
days are running out. What if they had
run out? What if I were here in this
massive pile of stone with all its count-
less rooms and streets and galleries and
hidden ways, alone with the lights and
the soundless phantoms?

Pure terror is a nasty thing. I had it
then.

I began to move, very cautiously,
along the wall. I wanted to get away
from that market place. One of the hair-
less gliding non-humans was bartering
for a female slave. The girl was shriek-
ing. I could see every drawn muscle in
her face, the spasmodic working of her
throat. Not the faintest sound came out.

I found a street that paralleled the
wall. I went along it, catching glimpses
of people — human people — inside the
lighted buildings. Now and then men
passed me and I hid from them. There
was still no sound. I was careful how' I
set my feet. Somehow I had the idea
that if I made a noise something ter-
rible would happen.

A group of merchants came toward
me. I stepped back into an archway
and suddenly from behind me there
came three spangled women of the
serais. I was caught.

I did not want those silent laughing
women to touch me. I leaped back to-
ward the street and the merchants
paused, turning their heads. I thought
4;hat they had seen me. I hesitated and
the women came on. Their painted eyes
shone and their red lips glistened. The
ornaments on their bodies flashed. They
walked straight into me.

I made noise then, all I had in my
lungs. And the women passed through
me. They spoke to the merchants and
the merchants laughed. They went off
together down the street. They hadn’t
seen me. They hadn’t heard me. And
w'hen I got in their way I was no more
than a shadow. They passed through
me.

I sat down on the stones of the street
and tried to think. I sat for a long time.
Men and women walked through me as
through the empty air. I sought to re-
member any sudden pain, as of an arrow
in the back That might have killed me
between two seconds, so that I hadn’t
known about it. It seemed more likely
that I should be the ghost than the other
way around.

STARTLING STORIES

southern

THE LAST DAYS OF SHANDAKOK 113

I couldn’t remember. My body felt
solid to my hands as did the stones I
sat on. They were cold and finally the
cold got me up and sent me on again.
There was no reason to hide any more.
I walked down the middle of the street
and I got used to not turning aside.

I came to another wall, running at
right angles back into the city. I fol-
lowed that and it curved around gradu-
ally until I found myself back at the
market place, at the inner end of it.
There was a gateway, with the main
part of the city beyond it, and the wall
continued. The non-humans passed back
and forth through the gate but no
human did except the slaves. I realized
then that all this section was a ghetto
for the humans who came to Shandakor
with the caravans.

I remembered how Corin had felt
about me. And I wondered — granted
that I were still alive and that some of
the people of Shandakq^ were still on
the same plane as myself — how they
would feel about me if I trespassed in
their city.

There was a fountain in the market-
place. The water sprang up sparkling
in the colored light and filled a wide
basin of carved stone. Men and women
were drinking from it. I went to the
fountain but when I put my hands in it
all I felt was a dry basin filled with dust.
I lifted my hands and let the dust trickle
from them. I could see it clearly. But I
saw the water too. A child leaned over
and splashed it and it wetted the gar-
ments of the people. They struck the
child and he cried and there was no
sound.

I went on through the gate that was
forbidden to the human race.

The avenues were wide. There were
trees and flowers, wide parks and gar-
den villas, great buildings as graceful
as they were tall. A wise proud city,
ancient in culture but not decayed, as
beautiful, as Athens but rich and
strange, with a touch of the alien in
every line of it. Can you think what it
was like to walk in that city, among the

silent throngs that were not human — to
see the glory of it, that was not human
either ?

The tovjers of jade and cinnabar, the
golden minarets, the lights and the col-
ored silks, the enjoyment and, the
strength. And, the people of Shamdakor!
No nrntter how far their souls have
gone they will never forgive me.

How long I wandered I don’t know.
I had almost lost my fear in wonder
at what I saw. And then, all at once
in that deathly stillness, I heard a sound
— the quick, soft scuffing of sandaled
feet.

IV

M STOPPED where I was, in the mid-
dle of a plaza. The tall silver-crested ones
drank wine under canopies of dusky
blooms and in the center a score of
winged girls as lovely as swans danced
a slow strange measure that was more
like flight than dancing. I looked all
around. There were many people. How
could you tell which one had made a
noise?

Silence.

1 turned and ran across the marble
paving. I ran hard and then suddenly
I stopped again, listening. Scuff-scuff —
no more than a whisper, very light and
swift. I spun around but it was gone.
The soundless people walked and the
dancers wove and shifted, spreading
their white wings.

Someone was watching me. Some one
of those indiiferent shadows was not a
shadow.

I went on. Wide streets led off from
the plaza. I took one of them. I tried
the trick of shifting pace and two or
three times I caught the echo of other
steps than mine. Once I knew it was
deliberate. Whoever followed me slip-
ped silently among the noiseless crowd,
blending with them, protected by them,
only making a show of footsteps now
and then to goad me.

I spoke to that mocking presence. I
talked to it and listened to my own voice

114 STARTLING STORIES

ringing hollow from the walls. The
groups of people ebbed and flowed
around me and there was no answer.

I tried making sudden leaps here and
there among the passers-by with my
arms outspread. But all I caught was
empty air. I wanted a place to hide and
there was none.

The street was long. I went its length
and the someone followed me. There
were many buildings, all lighted and
populous and deathly still. I thought
of trying to hide in the buildings but
I could not bear to be closed in between
walls with those people who were not
people.

I came into a great circle, where a
number of avenues met around the very
tall tower I had seen with the revolv-
ing globe on top of it. I hesitated, not
knowing which way to go. Someone was
sobbing and I realized that it was my-
self, laboring to breathe. Sweat ran
into the corners of my mouth and it
was cold, and bitter.

A pebble dropped at my feet with a
brittle click.

I bolted out across the square. Four
or five times, without reason, like a
rabbit caught in the open, I changed
course and fetched up with my back
against an ornamental pillar. From
somewhere there came a sound of
laughter.

I began to yell. I don’t know what I
said. Finally I stopped and there was
only the silence and the passing throngs,
who did not see nor hear me. And now
it seemed to me that the silence was
full of whispers just below the thresh-
old of hearing.

A second pebble clattered off the pillar
above my head. Another stung my body.
I sprang away from the pillar. There
was laughter and I ran.

There were infinities of streets, all
glowing with color. There were many
faces, strange faces, and robes blowm
out on a night wind, litters with scarlet
curtains and beautiful cars like chariots
drawn by beasts. They flowed past me
like smoke, without sound, without sub-

stance, and the laughter pursued me,
and I ran.

Four m.en of Shandakor came toward
me. I plunged through them but their
bodies opposed mine, their hands
caught me and I could see their eyes,
their black shining eyes, looking at
me . . .

I struggled briefly and then it was
suddenly very dark.

The darkness caught me up and took
me somewhere. Voices talked far away.
One of them was a light young shiny
sort of voice. It matched the laughter
that had haunted me down the streets.
I hated it.

I hated it so much that I fought to
get free of the black river that was
carrying m.e. There was a vertiginous
whirling of light and sound and stub-
born shadow and then things steadied
down and I was ashamed of myself for
having passed out.

I was in a room. It was fairly large,
very beautiful, very old, the first place
I had seen in Shandakor that showed
real age — Martian age, that runs back
before history had begun on Earth. The
floor, of some magnificent somber stone
the color of a moonless night, and the
pale slim pillars that upheld the arching
roof all showed the hollowings and
smoothnesses of centuries. The wall
paintings had dimmed and softened and
the rugs that burned in pools of color
on that dusky floor were worn as thin
as silk.

There were men and women in that
room, the alien folk of Shandakor. But
these breathed and spoke and were
alive. One of them, a girl-child with
slender thighs and little pointed breasts,
leaned against a pillar close beside me.
Her black eyes watched me, full of
dancing lights. When she saw that I was
awake again she smiled and flicked a
pebble at my feet.

I got up. I wanted to get that golden
body between my hands and make it
scream. And she said in High Martian,
“Are you a human? I have never seen
one before close to.”

THE LAST DAYS
\ MAN in a dark robe said, “Be still,
Duani.” He came and stood before
me. He did not seem to be armed but
others were and I remembered Gorin’s
little weapon. I got hold of myself and
did none of the things I wanted to do.

“What are you doing here?” asked the
man in the dark robe.

I told him about mvself and Gorin,
omitting only the fight that he and I
had had before he died, and -I told him
how the hillmen had robbed me.

“They sent me here,” I finished, “to
ask for water.”

Someone made a harsh humorless
sound. The man before me said, “They
were in a jesting mood.”

“Surely you can spare some water
and a beast!”

“Our beasts were slaughtered long
ago. And as for water ...” He paused,
then asked bitterly, “Don’t you under-
stand? We are dying here of thirst!”

I looked at him and at the she-imp
called Duani and the others. “You don’t
show any signs of it,” I said.

“You saw how the human tribes have
gathered like wolves upon the hills.
What do you think they wait for? A
year ago they found and cut the buried
aqueduct that brought water into Shan-
dakor from the polar cap. All they
needed then was patience. And their
time is very near. The store we had
in the cistern's is almost gone.”

A certain anger at their submissive-
ness made me say, “Why do you stay
here and die like mice bottled up in a
jar? You could have fought your way
out. I’ve seen your weapons.”

“Our weapons are old and we are
very few. And suppose that some of
us did survive — tell me again. Earth-
man, how did Gorin fare in the world
of men?” He shook his head. “Once we
were great and Shandakor was mighty.
The human tribes of half a world paid
tribute to us. We are only the last
poor shadow of our race but we will
not beg from men !”

“Besides,” said Duani softly, “where
else could we live but in Shandakor?”

OF SHANDAKOR 115

“What about the others?” I asked.
“The silent ones.”

“They are the past,” said the dark-
robed man and his voice rang like a
distant flare of trumpets.

Still I did not understand. I did
not understand at all. But before T could
ask more questions a man came up and
said, “Rhul, he v/ill have to die.”

The tufted tips of Duani’s ears quiv-
ered and her crest of silver* curls came
almost erect.

“No, Rhul!” she cried. “At least not
right away.”

There was a clamor from the others,
chiefly in a rapid angular speech that
must have predated all the S3dlables of
men. And the one who had spoken be-
fore to Rhul repeated, “He will have
to die! He has no place here. And we
can’t spare water.”

“I’ll share mine with him,” said
Duani, “for awhile.”

I didn’t want any favors from her
and said so. “I came here after sup-
plies. You haven’t any, so I’ll go away
again. It’s as simple as that.” I couldn’t
buy from the barbarians, but I might
make shift to steal.

Rhul shook his head. “I’m afraid not.
We are only a handful. For years our
single defense has been the living ghosts
of our past who walk the streets, the
shadows who man the walls. The bar-
barians believe in enchantments. If you
were to enter Shandakor and leave it
again alive the barbarians would know
that the enchantment cannot kill. They
would not wait any longer.”

Angrily, because I was afraid, I said,
“I can’t see what difference that would
make. You’re going to die in a short
while anyway.”

“But in our own way, Earthman, and
in our own time. Perhaps, being human,
you can’t understand that. It is a ques-
tion of pride. The oldest racb of Mars
will end well, as it began.”

He turned away with a small nod of
the head that said kill him — as easily
as that. And I saw the ugly little
weapons rise.

116 STARTLING STORIES

V

TSThERE was a split second then that
seemed like a year. I thought of many
things but none of them were any good.
It was a devil of a place to die with-
out even a human hand to help me
under. And then Duani flung her arms
around me.

“You’re all so full of dying and big
thoughts!’’ she yelled at them. “And
you’re a'l paired off or so old you can’t
do anvthing but think ! What about me ?
I don’t have anjmne to talk to and I’m
sick of wandering alone, thinking how
I’m going to die! Let me have him just
for a little while? I told you I’d share
my water.”

On Earth a child might talk that way
about a stray dog. And it is written
in an old Book that a live dog is better
than a dead lion. I hoped they would
let her keep me.

They did. Rhul looked at Duani with
a sort of weary compassion and lifted
his hand. “Wait,” he said to the men
with the weapons. “I have thought how
this human may be useful to us. We
have so little time left now" that it is a
pity to waste any of it, yet much of it
must be used up in tending the machine.
He could do that labor — and a man can
keep alive on very little w"ater.”

The others thought that over. Some
of them dissented violently, not so much
on the grounds of w^ater as that it was
unthinkable that a human should in-
trude on the last days of Shandakor.
Gorin had said the same thing. But
Rhul w"as an old man. The tufts of his
pointed ears were colorless as glass
and his face was graven deep with years
and wisdom had distilled in him its
bitter brew.

“A human of our own world, yes. But
this man is of Earth and the men of
Earth will come to be the new rulers
of Mars as we were the old. And Mars
will love them no better than she did
us because they are as alien as we. So
it is not unfitting that he should see us
out.”

They had to be content with that. I
think they were already so close to the
end that they did not reallyi care. By
ones and twos they left as though al-
ready they had wasted too much time
away from the wonders that there were
in the streets outside. Some of the men
still held the weapons on me and others
w"ent and brought precious chains such
as the human slaves had worn — shack-
les, so that I should not escape. They
put them on me and Duani laughed.

“Come,” said Rhul, “and I will show
you the machine.”

He led me from the room and up a
winding stair. There were tall em-
brasures and looking through them I
discovered that we were in the base
of the very high tower with the globe.
They must have carried me back to it
after Duani had chased me with her
laughter and her pebbles. I looked out
over the glowing streets, so full of
splendor and of silence, and asked Rhul
why there were no ghosts inside the
tower.

“You have seen the globe with the
crystal rods?”

“Yes.”

“We are under the shadow of its core.
There had to be some retreat for us into
reality. Otherwise we would lose the
meaning of the dream.”

The winding stair went up and up.
The chain between my ankles clattered
musically. Several times I tripped on
it and fell.

“Never mind,” Duani said. “You’ll
grow used to it.”

We came at last into a circular room
high in the tower. And I stopped and
stared.

M ost of the space in that room was
occupied by a web of metal girders
that supported a great gleaming shaft.
The shaft disappeared upward through
the roof. It was not tall but very mas-
sive, revolving slowly and quietly. There
were traps, presumably for access to the
offset shaft and the cogs that turned it.
A ladder led to a trap in the roof.

THE LAST DAYS

All the visible metal was sound with
only a little surface corrosion. What the
alloy was I don’t know and when I asked
Rhul he only smiled rather sadly.
“Knowledge is found,” he said, “only
to be lost again. Even we of Shandakor
forget.”

Every bit of that enormous structure
had been shaped and polished and fitted
into place by hand. Nearly all the Mar-
tian peoples work in metal. They seem
to have a genius for it and while they
are not and apparently never have been
mechanical, as some of our races are
on Earth, they find many uses for metal
that we have never thought of.

But this before me was certainly the
high point of the metal-workers’ craft.
When 1 saw what was down below, the
beautifully simple power plant and the
rotary drive set-up with fewer moving
parts than I would have thought pos-
sible, I was even more respectful. “How
old is it?” I asked and again Rhul shook
his head.

“Several thousand years ago there is
a record of the yearly Hosting of the
Shadows and it was not the first.” He
motioned me to follow him up the
ladder, bidding Duani sternly to remain
where she was. She came anyway.

There was a railed platform open to
the universe and directly above it swung
the mighty globe with its crystal rods
that gleamed so strangely. Shandakor
lay beneath us, a tapestry of many
colors, bright and still, and out along
the dark sides of the valley the tribes-
men waited for the light to die.

“When there is no one left to tend
the machine it will stop in time and
then the men who have hated us so long
will take what they want of Shandakor.
Only fear has kept them out this long.
The riches of half a world flowed
through these streets and much of it
remained.”

He looked up at the globe. “Yes,” he
said, “we had knowledge. More, I think,
than any other race of Mars.”

“But you wouldn’t share it with the
humans.”

OF SHANDAKOR 117

Rhul smiled. “Would you give little
children weapons to destroy you? We
gave men better ploughshares and
brighter ornaments and if they invented
a machine we did not take it from them.
But we did not tempt and burden them
with knowledge that was not their own.
They were content to make war v/ith
sword and spear and so they had more
pleasure and less killing and the world
was not torn apart.”

“And you — how did you make war?”

“We defended our city. The human
tribes had nothing that we coveted, so
there was no reason to fight them except
in self-defense. When we did we won.”
He paused. “The other non-human races
were more stupid or less fortunate. They
perished long ago.”

H e turned again to his explana-
tions of the machine. “It draws its
power directly from the sun. Some of
the solar energy is converted and stored
within the globe to serve as the light-
source. Some is sent down to turn the
shaft.”

“What if it should stop,” Duani said,
“while we’re still alive?” She shivered,
looking out over the beautiful streets.

“It won’t — not if the Earthman
wishes to live.”

“What would I have to gain by stop-
ping it?” I demanded.

“Nothing. And that,” said Rhul, “is
why I trust you. As long as the globe
turns you are safe from the barbarians.
After we are gone you will have the
pick of the loot of Shandakor.”

How I was going to get away with
it afterward he did not tell me.

He motioned me down the ladder
again but I asked him, “What is the
globe, Rhul? How does it make the —
the Shadows?”

He frowned. “I can only tell you what
has become, I’m afraid, mere traditional
knowledge. Our wise men studied deeply
into the properties of light. They learned
that light has a definite effect upon solid
matter and they believed, because of that
effect, that stone and metal and crys-
talline things retain a ‘memory’ of all

118 STARTLING STORIES

that they have ‘seen.’ Why this should
be I do not know.”

I didn’t try to explain to him the
quantum theory and the photo-electric
effect nor the various experiments of
Einstein and Millikan and the men who
followed them. I didn’t know them well
enough myself and the old High Mar-
tian is deficient in such terminology.

I only said, “The wise men of my
world also know that the impact of light
tears away tiny particles from the sub-
stance it strikes.”

I was beginning to get a glimmering
of the truth. Light-patterns ‘cut’ in the
electrons of metal and stone- — sound-
patterns cut in unlikely-looking medi-
ums of plastic, each needing only the
proper ‘needle’ to recreate the recorded
melody or the recorded picture.

“They constructed the globe,” said
Rhul. “I do not know how many gener-
ations that required nor how many fail-
ures they must have had. But they
found at last the invisible light that
makes the stones give up their mem-
ories.”

In other words they had found their
needle. What wave-length or combina-
tion of wave-lengths in the electromag-
netic spectrum flowed out from those
crystal rods, there was no way for me
to know. But where they probed the
walls and the paving blocks of Shanda-
kor they scanned the hidden patterns
that were buried in them and brought
them forth again in form and color —
as the electron needle brings forth whole
symphonies from a little ridged disc.

How they had achieved sequence and
selectivity was another matter. Rhul
said something about the ‘memories’
having different lengths. Perhaps he
meant depth of penetration. The stones
of Shandakor were ages old and the
outer surfaces would have worn away.
The earliest impressions would be gone
altogether or at least have become frag-
mentary and extremely shallow.

Perhaps the scanning beams could
differentiate between the overlapping
layers of impressions by that fraction

of a micron difference in depth. Photons
only penetrate so far into any given
substance but if that substance is con-
stantly growing less in thickness the
photons would have the effect of going
deeper. I imagine the globe was accurate
in centuries or numbers of centuries,
not in years.

However it was, the Shadows of a
golden past walked the streets of Shan-
dakor and the last men of the race
waited quietly for death, remembering
their glory.

Rhul took me below again and showed
me what my tasks would be, chiefly in-
volving a queer sort of lubricant and
a careful watch over the power leads.
I would have to spend most of my time
there but not all of it. During the free
periods, Duani might take me where
she would.

The old man went away. Duani leaned
herself against a girder and studied
me with intense interest. “How are you
called?” she asked.

“John Ross.”

“JonRoss,” she repeated and smiled.
She began to walk around me, touching
my hair, inspecting my arms and chest,
taking a child’s delight in discovering
all the differences there were between
herself and what we call a human. And
that was the beginning of my captivity.

VI

M. HERE were days and nights, scant
food and scanter water. There was
Duani. And there was Shandakor. I lost
my fear. And whether I lived, to occupy
the Chair or not, this was something to
have seen.

Duani was my guide. I was tender
of my duties because my neck depended
on them but there was time to wander
in the streets, to watch the crowded
pageant that was not and sense the
stillness and the desolation that were
so cruelly real.

I began to get the feel of what this
alien culture had been like and how it
had dominated half a world without the

THE LAST DAYS

need of conquest.

In a Hall of Government, built of
white marble and decorated with wall
friezes of austere magnificence, I
watched the careful choosing and the
crowning of a king. I saw the places of
learning. I saw the young men trained
for war as fully as they were instructed
in the arts of peace. I saw the pleasure
gardens, the theatres, the forums, the
sporting fields — and I saw the places
of work, where the men and women of
Shandakor coaxed beauty from their
looms and forges to trade for the things
they wanted from the human world.

The human slaves were brought by
their own kind to be sold, and they
seemed to be well treated, as one treats
a useful animal in which one has in-
vested money. They had their work to
do but it was only a small part of the
work of the city.

The things that could be had nowhere
else on Mars — the tools, the textiles, the
fine work in metal and precious stones,
the glass and porcelain — were fash-
ioned by the people of Shandakor and
they were proud of their skill. Their
scientific knowledge they kept entirely
to themselves, except what concerned
agriculture or medicine or better ways
of building drains and houses.

They were the lawgivers, the teachers.'
And the humans took all they would
give and hated them for it. How long
it had taken these people to attain such
a degree of civilization Duani could not
tell me. Neither could old Rhul.

“It is certain that we lived in com-
munities, had a form of civil govern-
ment, a system of numbers and written
speech, before the human tribes. There
are traditions of an earlier race than
ours, from whom we learned these
things. Whether or not this is true I do
not know.”

In its prime Shandakor had been a
vast and flourishing city with count-
less thousands of inhabitants. Yet I
could see no signs of poverty or crime.
I couldn’t even find a prison.

“Murder was punishable by death,”

OF SHANDAKOR 119

said Rhul, “but it was most infrequent.
Theft was for slaves. We did not stoop
to it.” He watched my face, smiling
a little acid smile. “That startles you
— a great city without suffering or
crime or places of punishment.”

I had to admit that it did. “Elder
race or not, how did you manage to do
it? I’m a student of cultures, both here
and on my owm 'world. I know all the
usual patterns of development and I’ve
read all the theories about them — but
Shandakor doesn’t fit any of them.”

Rhul’s smile deepened. “You are
human,” he said. “Do you wish the
truth?”

“Of course.”

“Then I will tell you. We developed
the faculty of reason.”

For a moment I thought he was jok-
ing. “Come,” I said, “man is a reason-
ing being — on Earth the only reasoning
being.”

“I do not know of Earth,” he an-
swered courteously. “But on Mars man
has always said, T reason, I am above
the beasts because I reason.’ And he
has been very proud of himself because
he could reason. It is the mark of his
humanity. Being convinced that reason
operates automatically within him he
orders his life and his government upon
emotion and superstition.

“He hates and fears and believes, not
with reason but because he is told to
by other men or by tradition. He does
one thing and says another and his
reason teaches him no difference be-
tween fact and falsehood. His bloodiest
wars are fought for the merest whim
— and that is why we did not give him
weapons. His greatest follies appear to
him the highest wisdom, his basest be-
trayals become noble acts — and that
is why we could not teach him justice.
We learned to reason. Man only learned
to talk.”

I understood then why . the human
tribes had hated the men of Shandakor.
I said angrily, “Perhaps that is so on
Mars. But only reasoning minds can
develop great technologies and we hu-

120 STARTLING STORIES

mans of Earth have outstripped yours
a million times. All right, you know or
knew some things we haven’t learned
yet, in optics and some branches of
electronics and perhaps in metallurgy.
But ...”

I went on to tell him all the things
we had that Shandakor did not. “You
never went beyond the beast of burden
and the simple wheel. We achieved
flight long ago. We have conquered
space and the planets. We’ll go on to
conquer the stars!”

Rhul nodded. “Perhaps we were
wrong. We remained here and con-
quered ourselves.” He looked out to-
ward the slopes where the barbarian
army waited and he sighed. “In the
end it is all the same.”

TAAYS and nights and Duani, bring-
^ ing me food, sharing her water,
asking questions, taking me through the
city. The only thing she would not show
me was something they called the Place
of Sleep. “I shall be there soon enough,”
she said and shivered.

,“How long?” I asked. It was an ugly
thing to say.

“We are not told. Rhul watches the
level in the cisterns and when it’s
time ...” She made a gestui'e with
her hands. “Let us go up on the wall.”

We went up among the ghostly sol-
diery and the phantom banners. Out-
side there were darkness and death and
the coming of death. Inside there were
light and beauty, the last proud blaze
of Shandakor under the shadow of its
doom. There was an eerie magic in it
that had begun to tell on me. I watched
Duani. She leaned against the parapet,
looking outward. The wind ruffled her
silver crest, pressed her garments close
against her body. Her eyes were full of
moonlight and I could not read them.
Then I saw that there were tears.

I put my arm around her shoulders.
She was only a child, an alien child,
not of my race or breed , . .

“JonRoss.”

“Yes?”

“There are so many things I will
never know.”

It was the first time I had touched
her. Those curious curls stirred und'er
my fingers, warm and alive. The tips of
her pointed ears were soft as a kitten’s.

“Duani.”

“What?”

“I don’t know . . .”

I kissed her. She drew back and gave
me a startled look from those black
brilliant eyes and suddenly I stopped
thinking that she was a child and I for-
got that she was not human and — I
didn’t care.

“Duani, listen. You don’t have to go
to the Place of Sleep.”

She looked at me, her cloak spread
out upon the night wind, her hands
against my chest.

“There’s a whole world out there to
live in. And if you aren’t happy there
I’ll take you to my world, to Earth.
There isn’t any reason why you have to
die!”

Still she looked at me and did not
speak. In the streets below the silent
throngs went by and the towers glowed
with many colors. Duani’s gaze moved
slowly to the darkness beyond the wall,
to the barren valley and the hostile
rocks.

“No.”

“Why not? Because of Rhul, because
of all this talk of pride and race?”

“Because of truth. Gorin learned it.”

I didn’t want to think about Gorin.
“Pie was alone. You’re not. You’d never
be alone.”

She brought her hands up and laid
them on my cheeks very gently. “That
green star, that is your world. Sup-
pose it were to vanish and you were
the last of all the men of Earth. Sup-
pose you lived with me in Shandakor
forever — would you not be alone?”

“It wouldn’t matter if I had you.”

She shook her head. “It would mat-
ter. And our two races are as far apart
as the stars. We would have nothing
to share between us.”

Remembering what Rhul had told me

THE LAST DAYS

I flared up and said some angry things.
She let me say them and then she smiled.
“It is none of that, JonRoss.” She
turned to look out over the city. “This
is my place and no other. When it is
gone I must be gone too.”

Quite suddenly I hated Shandakor.

I didn’t sleep much after that. Every
time Duani left me I was afraid she
might never come back. Rhul would
tell me nothing and I didn’t dare to
question him too much. The hours
rushed by like seconds and Duani was
happy and I was not. My shackles had
magnetic locks. I couldn’t break them
and I couldn’t cut the chains.

O NE evening Duani came to me with
something in her face and in the
way she moved that told me the truth
long before I could make her put it
into words. She clung to me, not want-
ing to talk, but at last she said, “Today
there was a casting of lots and the first
hundred have gone to the Place of
Sleep.”

’ “It is the beginning, then.”

She nodded. “Every day there will
be another hundred until all are gone.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I thrust
her away and stood up. “You know
where the ‘keys’ are. Get these chains
off me!”

She shook her head. “Let us not
quarrel now, JonRoss. Come. I v/ant
to walk in the city.”

We had quarreled more than once,
and fiercely. She would not leave Shan-
dakor and I couldn’t take her out by
force as long as I was chained. And I
was not to be released until everyone
but Rhul had entered the Place of Sleep
and the last page of that long history
had been written.

I walked with her among the dancers
and the slaves and the bright-cloaked
princes. There were no temples in Shan-
dakor. If they worshipped anything
it was beauty and to that their whole
city was a shrine. Duani’s eyes were
rapt and there was a remoteness on her
now.

OF SHANDAKOR 121

I held her hand and looked at the
towers of turquoise and cinnabar, the
pavings of rose quartz and marb’e, the
walls of pink and white and deep red
coral, and to me they were hideous. The
ghostly crowds, the mockery of life, the
phantom splendors of the past were
hideous, a drug, a snare.

“The faculty of reason!” I thought
and saw no reason in any of it.

I looked up to where the great globe
turned and turned against the sky,
keeping these mockeries alive. “Have
you ever seen the city as it is — without
the Shadows?”

“No. I think only Rhul, who is the
oldest, remembers it that way. I think
it must have been very lonely. Even
then there were less than three thou-
sand of us left.”

It must indeed have been lonely. They
must have wanted the Shadows as much
to people the empty streets as to fend
off the enemies who believed in magic.

I kept looking at the globe. We walked
for a long time. And then I said, “I must
go back to the tower.”

She smiled at me very tenderly. “Soon
you will be free of the tower — and of
these.” She touched the chains. “No,
don’t be sad, JonRoss. You will re-
member me and Shandakor as one re-
members a dream.” She held up her
face, that was so lovely and so unlike
the meaty faces of human wom.en, and
her eyes were full of sombre lights. I
kissed her and then I caught her up
in my arms and carried her back to the
tower.

In that room, where the great shaft
turned, I told her, “I have to tend the
things below. Go up onto the platform,
Duani, where you can see all Shandakor.
I’ll be with you soon.”

I don’t know whether she had some
hint of what was in my mind or whether
it was only the imminence of parting
that made her look at me as she did.
I thought she was going to speak but
she did not, climbing the ladder obedi-
ently. I watched her slender golden body
vanish upward. Then I went into the

122 STARTLING STORIES

chamber below.

There was a heavy metal bar there
that was part of a manual control for
regulating the rate of turn. I took it
off its pin. Then I closed the simple
switches on the power plant. I tore out
all the leads and smashed the connec-
tions with the bar. I did what damage
I could to the cogs and the offset shaft.
I worked very fast. Then I went up
into the main chamber again. The great
shaft was still tuiming but slowly, ever
more slowly.

There was a cry from above me and
I saw Duani. I sprang up the ladder,
thrusting her back onto the platform.
The globe moved heavily of its own
momentum. Soon it would stop but the
white fires still flickered in the crystal
rods. I climbed up onto the railing,
clinging to a strut. The chains on my
wrists and ankles made it hard but I
could reach. Duani tried to pull me
down. I think she was screaming. I
hung on and smashed the crystal rods
with the bar, as many as I could.

There was no more motion, no more
light. I got down on the platform again
and dropped the bar. Duani had for-
gotten me. She was looking at the city.

The lights of many colors that had
burned there were burning still but
they were old and dim, cold embers
without radiance. The towers of jade
and turquoise rose up against the little
moons and they were broken and
cracked with time and there was no
glory in them. They were desolate and
very sad. The night lay clotted around
their feet. The streets, the plazas and
the market squares were empty, their
marble paving blank and bare. The sol-
diers had gone from the walls of Shan-
dakor, with their banners and their
bright mail, and there was no longer
any movement anywhere within the
gates.

T^UANI let out one small voiceless
^ cry. And as though in answer to it,
suddenly from the darkness of the val-
ley and the slopes beyond there rose

a thin fierce howling as of wolves.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why?” She
turned to me. Her face was pitiful.
I caught her to me.

“I couldn’t let you die! Not for
dreams and visions, nothing. Look,
Duani. Look at Shandakor.” I wanted
to force her to understand. “Shandakor
is broken and ugly and forlorn. It is a
dead city — but you’re alive. There are
many cities but only one life for you.”

Still she looked at me and it was
hard to meet her eyes. She said, “We
knew all that, JonRoss.”

“Duani, you’re a child, you’ve only a
child’s way of thought. Forget the past
and think of tomorrow. We can get
through the barbarians. Gorin did. And
after that ...”

“And after that you would still be
human — and I would not.”

From below us in the dim and empty
streets there came a sound of lamen-
tation. I tried to hold her but she slipped
out from between my hands. “And I am
glad that you are human,” she whis-
pered. “You will never understand what
you have done.”

And she was gone before I could stop
her, down into the tower.

I went after her. Down the endless
winding stairs with my chains clatter-
ing between my feet, out into the streets,
the dark and broken and deserted
streets of Shandakor. I called her name
and her golden body went before me,
fleet and slender, distant and more dis-
tant. The chains dragged upon my feet
and the night took her away from me.

I stopped. The whelming silence
rushed smoothly over me and I was
bitterly afraid of this dark dead Shan-
dakor that I did not know. I called again
to Duani and then I began to search for
her in the shattered shadowed streets.
I know now' how long it must have been
before I found her.

For when I found her, she was with
the others. The last people of Shan-
dakor, the men and the women, the
women first, were walking silently in
a long line toward a low" flat-roofed

building that I knew without telling
was the Place of Sleep.

They were going to die and there
was no pride in their faces now. There
was a sickness in them, a sickness and
a hurt in their eyes as they moved
heavily forward, not looking, not want-
ing to look at the sordid ancient streets
that I had stripped of glory.

“Diiani!” I called, and ran forward
but she did not turn in her place in the
line. And I saw that she was weeping.

Rhul turned toward me, and his look
had a weary contempt that was bitterer
than a curse. “Of what use, after all,
to kill you now?”

“But I did this thing! I did it!”

“You are only human.”

The long line shuffled on and Duani’s
little feet were closer to that final door-
way. Rhul looked upward at the sky.
“There is still time before the sunrise.
The women at least will be spared the
indignity of spears.”

“Let me go with her!”

I tried to follow her, to take my place
in line. And the weapon in Rhul’s hand
moved and there was the pain and I lay
as Gorin had lain while they went
silently on into the Place of Sleep.

The barbarians found me when they
came, still half doubtful, into the city
after dawn. I think they were afraid
of me. I think they feared me as a
wizard who had somehow destroyed all
the folk of Shandakor.

For they broke my chains and healed
my wounds and later they even gave me
out of the loot of Shandakor the only
thing I wanted — a bit of porcelain,
shaped like the head of a young girl.

I sit in the Chair that I craved at
the University and my name is written
on the roll of the discoverers. I am
eminent, I am respectable— I, who mur-
dered the glory of a race.

Why didn’t I go after Duani into
the Place of Sleep? I could have
crawled! I could have dragged myself
across those stones. And I wish to God
I had. I wish that I had died with
Shandakor! • • •

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123

Lookiiig

I

Hypnotist Paul Marcus searched for it, deep in
the mind of the blonde. He found if, too . . .

IRSAR V/EES, chief indoctrinator
for Sol III sub-prefecture, was
defying the intent of the Relaxation-
room in his quarters. He buzzed furi-
ously back and forth from metal wall
to metal wall, his pedal-membrane mak-
ing a cricket-like sound as the vacuum
cups disengaged.

“The fools!” he thought. “The stu-
pid, incompetent, mindless fools!”

Mirsar Wees was a Denebian. His
race had originated more than three
million earth years ago on the fourth

planet circling the star Deneb — a planet
no longer existing. His profile was curi-
ously similar to that of a tall woman
in a floor-length dress, with the vacuum-
cup pedal-membrane contacting the
floor under the “skirt.” His eight spe-
cialized extensors waved now in a typi-
cal Denebian rage-pattern. His mouth,
a thin transverse slit entirely separate
from the olfactory-lung orifice directly
below it, spewed forth a multi-lingual
stream of invective against the assist-
ant who cowered before him.

Mj FMANM MEMIIEIIT

124

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? 125

“How did this happen?” he shouted.
“I take my first vacation in one hundred
years and come back to find my career
almost shattered by your incompe-
tency !”

Mirsar Wees turned and buzzed back
across the room. Through his vision-
ring, an organ somewhat like a glitter-
ing white tricycle- tire jammed down
about one-third of the distance over his
head, he examined again the report on
Earthling Paul Marcus and maintained
a baleful stare upon his assistant be-
hind him. Activating the vision cells
at his left, he examined the wall chrono-
meter.

“So little time,” he muttered. “If
only I had someone at Central Proces-
sing who could see a deviant when it
comes by! Now I’ll have to take care
of this bumble myself, before it gets out
of hand. If they hear of it back at the
bureau ...”

Mirsar Wees, the Denebian, a cog in
the galaxy-wide korad-farming empire
of his race, pivoted on his pedal-mem-
brane and went out a door w’hich opened
soundlessly before him. The humans
who saw his flame-like profile this night
would keep alive the folk tales of ghosts,
djinn, little people, fairies, elves,
pixies . . .

Were they given the vision to see it,
they would know also that an angry
overseer had passed. But they would
not see this, of course. That was part
of Mirsar Wees’ job.

TT WAS mainly because Paul Marcus

was a professional hypnotist that he
obtained an aborted glimpse of the
rulers of the world.

The night it happened he was indu-
cing a post-hypnotic command into the
mind of an audience-participant to his
show on the stage of the Roxy Theater
in Tacoma, Washington.

Paul was a tall, thin man with a
wide head which appeared large because
of this feature although it really was
not. He wore a black tailcoat and for-

mal trousers, jewelled cuff links and
chalkwhite cuffs, which gleamed and
flashed as he gestured. A red spotlight
in the balcony gave a Mephisto caste
to his stage-setting, which was dom-
inated by a backdrop of satin black
against which gleamed two giant, lumi-
nous eyes. He was billed as “Marcus
the Mystic” and he looked the part.

The subject was a blonde girl whom
Paul had chosen because she displayed
signs of a higher than ordinary intelli-
gence, a general chai'acteristic of per-
sons who are easily hypnotized. The
woman had a good figure and showed
sufficient leg when she sat down on the
chair to excite whistles and cat-calls
from the front rows. She flushed, but
maintained her composure.

“What is your name, please?” Paul
asked.

She answered in a contralto voice,
“Madelyne Walker.”

“Miss or Mrs.?”

She said, “Miss.”

Paul held up his right hand. From
it dangled a gold chain on the end of
which was a large paste gem with
many facets cut into its surface. A
spotlight in the wings was so directed
that it reflected countless star-bursts
from the gem.

“If you will look at the diamond,”
Paul said. “Just keep your eyes on it.”

He began to swing the gem rhyth-
mically, like a pendulum, from side to
side. The girl’s eyes followed it. Paul
waited until her eyes were moving in
rhythm with the swinging bauble be-
fore he began to recite in a slow.^mono-
tone, timed to the pendulum:

“Sleep. You will fall asleep . . . deep
sleep . . . deep sleep . . . asleep . . . deep
asleep . . . asleep . . . asleep . . .”

Her eyes followed the gem.

“Your eyelids will become heavy,”
Paul said. “Sleep. Go to sleep. You
are falling asleep . . . deep, restful sleep
. . . healing sleep . . . deep asleep . . .
asleep . . . asleep . . . asleen . . .”

126 STARTLING STORIES

H er head began to nod, eyelids to
close and pop open, slower and
slower. Paul gently moved his left hand
up to the chain. In the same monotone
he said, “When the diamond stops
swinging you will fall into a deep, rest-
ful sleep from which only I can awaken
you.” He allowed the gem to swing
slower and slower in shorter and
shorter sweeps. Finally, he put both
palms against the chain and rotated it.
The bauble at the end of the chain be-
gan to whirl rapidly, its facets corus-
cating with the reflections of the spot-
light.

Miss Walker’s head fell forward and
Paul kept her from falling off the chair
by grasping her shoulder. She was in
deep trance. He began demonstrating
to the audience the classic symptoms
which accompany this — insensitivity to
pain, body rigidity, complete obedience
to the hypnotist’s voice.

The show went along in routine fash-
ion. Miss Walker barked like a dog.
She became the dowager queen with
dignified mein. She refused to answer
to her own name. She conducted the
imaginary symphony orchestra. She
sang an operatic aria.

The audience applauded at the cor-
rect places in the performance. Paul
bowed. He had his subject deliver a
wooden bow, too. He wound up to the
finale.

“When I snap my fingers you will
awaken,” he said. “You will feel com-
pletely ref resiled as though after a
sound sleep. Ten seconds after you
awaken you will imagine yourself on a
crowded streetcar where no one will
give you a seat. You will be extremely
tired. Finally, you will ask the fat man
opposite you to give you his seat. He
will do so and you will sit down. Do
you understand?”

Miss Walker nodded her head.

“You will remember nothing of this
when you awaken,” Paul said.

He raised his hand to snap his
fingers . . .

It was then that Paul Marcus re-
ceived his mind-jarring idea. He held
his hand up, fingers ready to snap,
thinking about this idea, until he heard
the audience stirring restlessly behind
him. Then he shook his head and
snapped his fingers.

Miss Walker awakened slowly, looked
around, got up, and exactly ten seconds
later began the streetcar hallucinations.
She performed exactly as commanded,
again awakened, and descended con-
fusedly from the stage to more applause
and whistles.

It should have been gratifying. But
from the moment he received the idea,
the performance could have involved
someone other than Paul Marcus for all
of the attention he gave it. Habit car-
ried him through the closing routine,
the brief comments on the powers of
hypnotism, the curtain calls. Then he
walked back to his dressing room
slowly, preoccupied, unbuttoning his
studs on the way as he always did fol-
lowing the last performance of the
night. The concrete cave below stage
echoed to his footsteps.

TN THE dressing room he removed the

tailcoat and hung it in the wardrobe.
Then he sat down before the dressing
table mirror and began to cream his
face preparatory to removing the light
makeup he wore. He found it hard to
meet his own eyes in the mirror.

“This is silly,” he told himself sourly.

A knock sounded at the door. With-
out turning, he said, “Come in.”

The door opened hesitantly and the
blonde Miss Walker stepped into the
room.

“Excuse me,” she said. “The man at
the door said you were in here and . . .”

Seeing her in the mfirror, Paul turned
around and stood up.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Miss Walker looked around her as
though to make sure they were alone
before she answered.

“Not exactly,” she said.

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? 127

Paul gestured to a settee beside his
dressing table. “Sit down, won’t you?”
he asked. He returned to the dressing
table as Miss Walker seated herself.

“You’ll excuse me if I go on with this
chore,” he said, taking a tissue to the
grease paint under his chin.

Miss Walker smiled. “You remind me
of a woman at her nightly beauty care,”
she said.

Paul thought: Another stage-stimck
miss, and the performance gives her
the excuse to take up my time. He
glanced at the girl out of the corners
of his eyes. “Not bad, though . . .”

“You haven’t told me to what I owe
the pleasure of your company,” he said.

Miss Walker’s face clouded with
thought.

“It’s really very silly,” she said.

Probably, Paul thought.

“Not at all,” he said. “Tell me what’s
on your mind.”

“Well, it’s an idea I had while my
friends were telling me what I did on
the stage,” she said. She grinned wryly.
“I had the hardest time believing that
there actually wasn’t a streetcar up
there. I’m still not absolutely convinced.
Maybe you brought in a dummy street-
car with a lot of actors. Oh, I don’t
know!” She shook her head and put a
hand to her eyes.

The way she said, “I don’t know !”
reminded Paul of his own idea ; the idea.
He decided to give Miss Walker the fast
brush-off in order to devote more time
to thinking this new idea through to
some logical conclusion.

“What about the streetcar?” he
asked.

'T^HE girl’s face assumed a worried
-*■ expression. “I thought I was on a
real streetcar,” she said. “There was
no audience, no . . . hypnotist. Nothing.
Just the reality of riding the streetcar
and being tired like you are after a
hard day’s work. I saw the people on
the car. I smelled them. I felt the car
under my feet. I heard the money

bounce in the coin-catcher and all the
other noises one hears on a streetcar —
people talking, a man opening his news-
paper. I saw the fat man sitting there
in front of me. I asked him for his
seat. I even felt embarrassed. I heard
him answer and I sat down in his seat.
It was warm and I felt the people press-
ing against me on both sides. It was
very real.”

“And what bothers you?” Paul asked.

She looked up from her hands which
were tightly clasped in her lap.

“That bothers me,” she said. “That
streetcar. It was real. It was as real
as anything I’ve ever known. It was as
real as now. I believed in it. Now I’m
told it wasn’t real.” Again she looked
down at her hands. “What am I to
believe ?”

This is getting close to the idea, Paul
thought.

“Can you express what bothers you
in any other way?” he asked.

She looked him squarely in the eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I got to thinking
while my friends were talking to me.
I got to wondering. What if all this — ”
she gestured around her — “our whole
lives, our world, everything we see, feel,
hear, smell, or sense in any way is more
of the same. A hypnotic delusion!”

“Precisely!” Paul exhaled the woi’d.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I said, ‘Precisely!’ ”

Her brows drew together. “Why?”

Paul turned toward her and rested
his left elbow on the dressing table.
“Because,” he said, “at the very mo-
ment I was telling you what you would
do when you awakened, at the moment
I was giving you the commands which
resulted in your hallucination, I got the
same idea.”

“My goodness !” she said. The very
mildness of her exclamation made it
seem more vehement than if she had
sworn.

Paul turned back to the dressing table
mirror. “I wonder if there could be
something in telepathy as well?”

128 STARTLING STORIES

Miss Walker looked at him in the
mirror, the room seeming to draw in
closely behind her. “It was an idea I
couldn’t keep to myself,” she said. “I
told my friends — I came with a married
couple — but they just laughed at me.
I decided on the spur of the moment to
come back here and talk to you and I
did it before I could lose my nerve. Af-
ter all, you’ hypnotist. You should

know some!, about this.”

“It’ll take some looking into,” Paul
said, “I wonder . . He turned toward
Miss Walker. “Are you engaged to-
night?”

■O'ER expression changed. She looked
at him as though her mother were
whispering in her ear: “Watch out!
Watch out! He’s a man.”

“Well, I don’t know . . .” she said.

Paul put on his most v/inning smile.
“I’m no backstage wolf,” he said.
“Please. I feel as though somebody
had asked me to cut the Gordian knot,
and I’d rather untie it — but I need
help.”

“What could we do?” she asked.

It was Paul’s turn to hesitate. “There
are several ways to approach the prob-
lem,” he said. “We in America have
only scratched the surface in our study
of hypnotism.” He doubled up his fist
and thudded it gently on the dressing
table. “Hell ! I’ve seen witch doctors
in Haiti who know more about it than
I do. But . .

“What would you do first?” she
asked.

“I’d ... I’d . . .” Paul looked at her
for a moment as though he really saw
her for the first time. “I’d do this,” he
said. “Make yourself comfortable on
that settee. Lean back. That’s it.”

“What are you going to do?” she
asked.

“Well,” Paul said, “it’s pretty well es-
tablished that these sensory hallucina-
tions are centered in one part of the
human nervous system which is laid
bare by hi/pnotism. It’s possible, by

using hypnotism, to get at the com-
mands other hypnotists have put there.
I’m going to put you back in deep trance
and let you search for the commands
yourself. If something is commanding
us to live an illusion, the command
should be right there with all the
others.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Please,” Paul urged. “We might be
able to crack this thing right here and
now in just a few minutes.”

“All right.” She still sounded hesi-
tant, but she leaned back as directed.

Paul lifted his paste gem from the
dressing table and focused the table
spotlight on it. “Look at the diamond,”
he said. . . .

This time she fell into the trance
more readily. Paul checked her for pain
threshold, muscular control. She re-
sponded appropriately. He began ques-
tioning :

“Do you hear my voice?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you know what hypnotic com-
mands are in your mind?” he asked.

There was a long pause. Her lips op-
ened dryly. “There are . . . commands,”
she said.

“Do you obey them?” he asked.

“I must.”

“What is the most basic of these
commands?” he asked.

“I . . . can . . . not . . . tell.”

Paul almost rubbed his hands. A sim-
ple ‘Don’t talk about it,’ he thought.

“Just nod your head if I repeat the
command,” he said. “Does it say, ‘You
must not tell’ ?”

Her head nodded.

Paul rubbed his hands against his
pants legs and realized suddenly that
he was perspiring excessively.

“V/hat is it you must not tell?” he
asked.

She shook her head without speaking.

“You must tell me,” he said. “If you
do not tell me, your right foot will be-
gin to burn and itch unbearably and
will continue to do so until you do tell

LOOKING FOB

me. Tell me what it is that you have
been commanded not to tell.”

Again she shook her head. She
reached down and began to scratch her
right foot. She pulled off her shoe.

“You must tell me,” Paul said. “What
is the first word of the command?”

The girl looked up at him, but her
eyes remained unfocused.

“You . . .” she said.

It was as though she had brought
the word from some dark place deep
within her and the saying of it was al-
most too much to bear. She continued
to scratch her right leg.

“What is the second word?” Paul
asked.

She tried to speak, but failed.

“Is it ‘must’?” he asked. “Nod your
head if it is.”

She nooded her head.

“You ‘must’ what?”

Again she was wordless.

He thought about it for a moment.
“Sensory perception,” he thought. He
leaned forward. “Is it ‘You must
sense . . .’ ?” he asked. “Is it ‘You must
sense only . . .’?”

She relaxed. Her head nodded and
she said, “Yes.”

Paul took a deep breath.

“What is it ‘You must sense
only . . .’?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, her lips
moved, but no sound issued.

He felt like screaming at her, drag-
ging the answer from her mind with
his hands.

“What is it?” His voice cracked on
the question. “Tell me!”

She shook her head from side to side.
He noticed signs of awakening.

Again he took a deep breath. “What
will. happen to you if you tell me?”

“i’ll die,” she said.

He leaned forward and lowered his
voice to a confidential tone. “That is
foolishness,” he said. “You can’t die
just because you say a few words. You
know that. Now tell me what it is that
you have been ordered to sense.”

SOMETHING? 129

She stared straight ahead of her at
nothing, mouth open. Paul lowered his
head to look directly into her eyes. “Do
you see me?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I see death.”

“Look at me instead,” Paul said. “You
remember me.”

“You are death,” she said.

“That’s nonsense! Look at me,” he
commanded.

Her eyes opened wider. Paul stared
into them. Her eyes seemed to grow
and grow and grow and grow . . . Paul
found himself unable to look away.
There was nothing else in the world ex-
cept two blue-gray eyes. A deep, reso-
nant voice, like a low-register cello, filled
his mind.

“You will forget everything that has
happened tonight,” it said. “You will
die rather than remember. You will,
you must, sense only those things which
you have been commanded to sense.

I, , command it.

Do you remember me?”

Paul’s lips formed the word, “yes”.

“Who am I?” the voice asked.

Paul dampened his dry lips with his
tongue. “You are death,” he said.

B ureaucracy has a kind of time-
less, raceless mold which makes its
communiques recognizable as to type
by the members of any bureau any-
where. The multiple copies, the precise
wording to cover devious intent, the
absolute protocol of address — all are of
a pattern, whether the communication
is to the Reconstruction Finance Cor-
poration or the Denebian Bureau of
Indoctrination.

Mirsar Wees knew the pattern as
another instinct. He had been super-
visor of indoctrination and overseer of
the korad farming on Sol HI for one
hundred and fifty-seven of the planet’s
years. In that time, by faithfully fol-
lowing the letter of the Indoctrination
Bureau’s code and never an individual

130 STARTUNG STORIES

interpretation of its spirit, he had in-
sured for himself a promotion to Co-
ordinator of the entire Sol prefecture
whenever such an opening occurred.

Having met another threat to his
position and resolved it, knov/ing the
security of his tenure, he sat before the
mechanical secretary-transmitter in his
office and dictated a letter to the Bur-
eau. The vision-ring around his head
glowed a dull amber as he relaxed the
receptors in it. His body stretched out
comfortably, taking a gentle massage
from the chair.

“There has been considerable care-
lessness lately with the training of neo-
indoctrinators,” he said into the com-
muno-tube.

Let a few heads fall at the bureau,
he thought.

“There seems to be a feeling that,
because we of the Sol prefecture are
dealing with lesser beings, a lesser
amount of care need be taken Vi^ith the
prefecture’s indoctrinators. I have just
dealt with a first-order threat to the Sol
III korad supply, a threat which was
directly attributable to neo-indoctrina-
tor carelessness. A deviant was allowed
to pass through the hands of three of
our latest acquisitions from the College
of Indoctrinators. These indoctrinators
have been sent back for retraining.”

H e thought in satisfaction; They
will reflect that the korad secreted
by the glands of our charges is neces-
sary for their ov/n immortality, and will
be more severe at the training center
because of that. And pensively: It is
almost time for me to tell them of our
breeding experiments to bring the korad
glands to the exterior of these crea-
tures, making more frequent draining
possible. They will praticularly appre-
ciate the niceties of indoctrination —
increasing the mating pattern, increas-
ing individual peril and, thereby, the
longevity gland secretion, and the more
Srtrict visual limitation to keep the crea-
tures from discovering the change. . . .

“I am sending a complete visio-corder
report on how I met this threat,” he
spoke into the tube. “Briefly, I insinu-
ated myself into the earth-being’s pres-
ence and installed a more severe com-
mand. Standard procedure. It was not
deemed practical to eliminate the crea-
ture because of the latest interpreta-
tions on command interference; it was
felt that the being’s elimination might
set off further thought-patterns inimi-
cal to our designs.

“The creature was, therefore, com-
manded to mate with another of its ilk
who is more stringently under our con-
trol. The creature also was removed
from any labor involving the higher
nerve-centers and has been put to an-
other task, that of operating a trans-
portation device called a streetcar.

“The mate has been subjected to the
amputation of an appendage. Unfortu-
nately, before I could take action, the
creature I treated had started along an
exceedingly clever line of action and
had installed irremovable commands
which made the appendage useless.”

They will see how much of a deviant
the creature was, he thought, and how
careless the new indoctrinators were.

“The indoctrinator service must keep
in mind at all times what happened to
create the Sol planetoid belt. Those
bodies, as we all know, once were the
planet Dirad, the greatest korad source
in the entire galaxy. Slipshod procedure
employed by indoctrinators set up a
situation similar to the one I have just
nipped, and we were forced to destroy
the entii’e planet. The potency of minds
which have slipped from our control
should be kept constantly before our at-
tention. Dirad is an object lesson.

“The situation here is again com-
pletely normal, of course, and the korad
supply is safe. We can go on draining
the immortality of others — ^but only as
long as ice maintain constant vigilance.”

H signed it, “Cordially, Mirsar Wees,
Chief Indoctrinator, Sol Sub-prefec-
ture.”

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? 131

Someday, he thought, it will be “Co-
ordinator.”

Rising from the mechano-secretary,
Mirsar Wees moved over to the “incom-
ing” tube of his report-panel and noticed
a tube which his new assistant had
tabbed with the yellow band of “ex-
treme importance.”

He inserted the tube into a translator,
sat down, and watched as it dealt out the
report :

“A Hindu creature has seen itself as
it really is,” the report said.

Mirsar Wees reached over and put

a tracer-beam on his new assistant to
observe hov/ that worthy was meeting
this threat.

The report buzzed on: “The creature
went insane as per indoctrination com-
mand, but most unfortunately it is a
member of a sect which worships in-
sanity. Others are beginning to listen
to its babblings.”

The report concluded : “I make
haste.”

Mirsar Wees leaned back, relaxed and
smiled blandly. The new assistant
showed promise.

ll-IE ETilEH VIBRATES

(Continued from paye 8)

number 10s. Oh, yes, I almost forgot one type.
That’s the one that goes :

Dear Mr. Mines : While idly leafing through
back issues of magazines I haven’t had time to
read yet. memories of the good old days came
floating back. . . .

8c60th Co. G.P. Gunther AFB, Ala.

Love that sarge. .-tny time you want to be
guest editor of SS just give us enough warning
to have a key to the office made for you and
you can have this swivel chair and fit your feet
into the worn places on the desk. . . .

HIT THE DIRT

by Joe Gibson

Dear Sam : There’s a funny thing about old Ab-
dullah Leinster : he always comes up with some-
thing not only good, but of current and popular in-
terest. He must read the newspapers. And Sam.
old man, just WHO was the artist of this Jan. ish
cover? And who’s lousing up in the Art Dept., for-
getting the artist’s signature — just what do they
think this is. another pulp magazine?

Whose else’s leg can I pull around here? Ah —
yours ! Seems you didn’t give Gordon Gibson, in
LEV. a complete answer on tvho w’rote Fury. It
was Kuttner. of course : -not John D. MacDonald,
who is a guy I wish would stop wasting time on
detectives and waste it on stf. Oh, well — ya gotta
eat ! But the mag-serial version of Kuttner’s Fury
came out, I think, under the pseudyonjmi-m-m —

In spite of all the Scotch flowing in my veins,
Sam, old horse, and in spite "of all the Scotch flow-
ing in your veins, it seems neither of us is sure
that Kuttner's magazine pseudonym was Anson
MacDonald ! "Xichez'o,” as the Russkies say —
“Oh, W'ell !” —

Now, admittedly, the Coles seemed to have their
ego deflated by some wreird character or other ask-
ing if they’d read the original sources of the Lysen-
ko gobbledygook. And here are two esteemed guys.

L. Sprague de Camp of the planet Krishna and Dr.
John D. Clark of the Naval Air Rocket Test Sta-
tion, both with most commendable answers on the
matter. And they know whereof they speak, but —

Why bother to answer?

“When ya hit the dirt, do it in cover, stupid, do
it in cover! More dumb, green kids knocked off
flapping their faces in the wide, open spaces than — ”
(Quotation from a buck sergeant, U.S. Infantry.)

May I suggest, gentlemen, that there are more
commendable subjects for enjoyable discussion?
Such as ; There Are Plenty (jf Beautiful Babes
Reading Science-Fiction versus There Are Deleted
Few Beautiful, etc., etc., etc. —

Hmmrammm ? — 24 Kensington Ave., Jersey City
4. N. J.

Ah, Joe, you’re slipping. If you look very
carefully around the left biceps of the Arab
right smack in the foreground, you will find the
name of Earle Bergey blazoned imperishably, if
indistinguishably. Didn’t recognize the style,
huh? Told you ole Marse Bergey had a trick
or two up his sleeve. And how about VUL-
CAN’S DOLLS, eh?

Anson MacDonald Kuttner? Can you be the
only man in the world who doesn’t know that’s
Heinlein? Leave us draw a merciful curtain
over your blushes and go on to something in-
teresting like your topic for study as outlined
above.

See lead editorial.

TAGGING ALONG

by Gregg Calkins

Dear Sam (Mines, that is) : ’Bout this time
everybody should be wising up to just who does
edit startling. I couldn’t stand seeing every-
body write to Merwin all the time with your name

STARTLING STORIES

132

on the masthead, so I thought I’d be original and
write a letter to you! Surprised?

I don't know whether you have the magic touch
or what, but you sure did the trick. What trick?
Why a monthly STARTLING, of course. STAR-
TLING can afford to go monthly. I hope you real-
ize that lots of promags can’t do that — for instance,
with you as a monthly, TWS is better off as it is
(every other month) . Some mags are ok once every
other month, but become unutterably boring at twice
that rate. Not so STARTLING.

. And if you’re responsible for the change in Ber-
gey. . . . How did you ever get the guy off the
“babe, BEM, hero” triangle. (Did he do the Jan-
uary cover ? ? — it doesn’t say.-) Somebody introduce
him to Hubbard ? ? Anyhow, let's see more of him
if he’s finally going to start acting like an artist.

Bixby does a good job on what fmz reviews he
manages to get into his review column, but I sus-
pect he’d rather write editorials because he takes
up more space gabbing than he does reviewing. It
just may be that he doesn’t have many fmz’s to
review, but if that’s the case I’ll see if I can’t in-
crease the number soon.

TEV is really getting to a fine point as readers
columns go. A unique letter was one by Charles
Baird in the January issue. He , wants you to in-
crease to 3Sc a copy. Frankly, can you afford to do
so? I don’t think STARTLING could, to be bru-
tally frank with you. Besides, I think the material
you are presenting now is quite adequate for my
tastes, and if you keep that up I’ll continue to buy
STARTLINCj. Your quality won’t deteriorate just
because you have a lower price — just the opposite.
A 3Sc price forces quite a few fen to drop that mag
and buy a cheaper one but one that still has quality
— that’s where you come in. See what I mean, Sam?

Your Movie Review policy is to be commended.
I like the way it is presented very much, and its
masthead is very easy to read and contains much
valuable information about the technical side of the
picture. More !

I still can’t get ov'er that cover, Sam. With a
reeducated Bergey on the cover and the incompar-
able Finlay on the interiors I don’t see how any
mag can top you there (unless they cheat and use
the one and only s-f artist, Bonestell.)

Wish you’d put on the title page the approximate
date to expect the next issue on the newsstands.
I've just got to look every day every month, and
darn it Sam, that’s awful hard. Just say something
like “February issue on sale December 10” or some
little thing like that, why don’t you?

And why don’t you give us an idea of what
authors and stories to expect in the next issue?
Or do we just have to be surprised??

I've got a final bone to chew on wdth the fen
before I leave, Sam. I'm putting out a fanzine in
January (which will already be out by the time
this is printed) which I’m naming OOPSLA and
which I intend to make someday (soon. I hope)
comparable to such great ’zines as Quandry and
maybe Slant. I know I can do better than a lot of
zines in the field at present. The first issue has a
planned contents page of Rog Phillips, Tom Cov-
ington, Shelby Vick and the great Lee Hoffman.
Issue |2 shou’d be even better, so you fen had bet-
ter sub now. One thing, you fans. I hereby promise
(IN PUBLIC PRINT!) to carry out to the best
of my ability my debts to you as a faneditor. I in-

tend to keep very strict books on OOPSLA’s finan-
cial progress, and not a dime will be lost. Rest
assured that if you mail me a dime (that’s the
price — 10c) for a sample copy you’ll either get a
copy in return of the current issue, a post card ask-
ing you to W'ait until the next issue so I can send
you one of them, or your dime back! I PROMISE
YOU ! 1 !

Which winds this letter up. No need to comment
on your individual stories, Sam, as I’m sure quite
a few? better qualified fans than I will be sure to
do so. Besides, I think all of your fiction is quality
anyhow, so I’d just give a prejudiced opinion of
the stories. Follow through what you’ve started in
STARTLING, Sam and you’ll always find me tag-
ging along with you somewhere . — 930 Briarcliff
Az'e., Salt Lake City, If tali.

Remind me to ask you, Gregg, if you’re left-
handed. This praise is going to turn our head.
You don’t mind if w'e retain our owm notions
about quality, do you ? I’m glad you noticed
STARTLING’S lead in freshness and variety
though — that’s wJiat keeps it from getting
monotonous. Have taken up with Production
your request for putting in each issue the date
the next issue wall hit the stands. Think it can
be done, so w'atch for it in future issues of SS.

FAVORITE FODDER

by Alice Bullock

Nice going, Samuel Mines! And don’t tell me
that these stories were all selected before Sam Mer-
win left either. Why should he wait until his name
is no longer on the masthead to put out the best
single issue of SS j'et? Nope. Even a Merwdn fan
— and as an editor I really did like him — can’t see
him doing that.

Which doesn’t mean I liked every story — for in-
stance — LOST ART 1 didn’t. The solution was too
darned pat — the revolt of the Sympats came in too
handily at just the right time, or was there a cut-
ting job to blame it all on? THE WHEEL is
beautifully done. John Wyndham has made a con-
vert of me. I'll be watching for him. The old man
pathetically real, the boy a nice, intelligent kid and
not overdone.

Murray Leinster’s JOURNEY TO BARKUT is
whimsical, capricious, ingenuously naive and wholly
charming. Like finding a new fairy tale back in
little girl days. Disney might well veil Nasim thinly
or even tone down the cross plot and play up Ab-
dul's irrepressible antics and have a real, modern
movie. I’d love to see him do it with this story. All
tlie opportunity in the w'orld for gorgeous color . . .
and fantasy.

Speaking of fantasy I ran into some very inter-
esting (to me at any rate) information in regard to
fantasy. One eighth of the books that have hit be.st
seller lists since 1662 in these United States (Eng-
lish colonies prior to Revolution included) have
been fantasy. Placing on list of best sellers was
based upon the requirement that any book to be so
designated must have sold at least one percent of
the population in the decade in which it was pub-

133

THE ETHER VIBRATES

lished. The requirement before 1690 was one thou-
sand, with books such as PILGRIM’S PROG-
RESS and A CALL TO THE UNCONVERT-
ED leading. What a long jump to FOREVER
AMBER with a required sale of one million in
1945 ! And not all in number either ! I wonder
which books will make it for the decade ending
with 1950? Darn it — the list didn’t include last
year. Under the science fiction flag Jules Verne
made the list in 1873 with a sale of at least the
required 375,000. (TWENTY THOUSAND
LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA).

I suppose the above was interesting to me be-
cause of the defensive attitude I’ve developed about
science fiction and fantasy. Perfectly nice people,
in all sincerity, will say “No, I never read fantasy
or science fiction. It’s silly.” Then go right on and
sav they never spend a Christmas without reading
Dickens’ CHRISTMAS CAROL. Some of your
erudite authors might go to the limit some day and
write an article about our favorite fodder and dan-
gle it at one of the very sleek slicks. I say slick so
that it will be under the noses of those who don’t
know how much fun there is to reading STAR-
TLING STORIES and sister rnagazines even if
they are in pulp format . — 812 Gildersleeve , Santa
Fe, N. M.

THE STAR WATCHERS was the last
story bought jointly by Merwin and me, though
WELL OF THE WORLDS had been bought
some time before and hadn’t yet been used.
Since then, however, JOURNEY TO BAR-
KUT, VULCAN’S DOLL, THE GLORY
THAT WAS by L. Sprague de Camp — and
yet to come ; THE HELLFLOWER by George
O. Smith were solos. Good too, said he, mod-
estly.

Glad to see you like Wyndham. Did you see
SURVIVAL in TWS for February? A honey.
Your dope on fantasy book sales is very inter-
esting; all the more so since it seems to con-
tradict the opinions of the experts round town.
You won’t need to apologize for reading SS
much longer ; with improving covers and stories
the magazine is becoming positively respectable
(if you’ll excuse the expression) and the most
unexpected people are discovering to their
amazement that they like it. Fact, you’ll be in
the best of company.

MOTHER’S CAKE

by Mrs. H. C. Gunn

Hi; Just finished reading THE ETHER VI-
BRATES. What have we here? A bunch of old
biddies and nasty-minded little boys ? That’s what
it sounds like. My family and myself and quite a
few of my friends like every one of your covers
and we haven’t found a vulgar one yet. I’m getting-
sick and tired of some people trying to bring back
1890. Why don’t they grow up and start living in
today’s world instead of yesterday’s? At least they
could keep their bigotry to themselves and let the

rest of us enjoy the magazine.

They’re just like the little boy who was a critic.
He didn’t like the way his mother baked a cake so
he kept nagging until she changed the recipe and
then he didn’t like it half as well as he had liked
the original.

I like some of your stories better than others, but
I like them all. — Box 545, Barstow, Calif.

What a coincidence, this letter coming in
just at this time ! If any of you characters
think I planted it, you’re all wet; I found it
after I wrote the editorial.

APPROVAL

by Klaus Kaufman

Dear Editor : TERRIFIC — the January issue of
SS I mean. Keep it up and I’ll be buying your
magazine till doomsday. I won’t list the stories in
order of my preference as I think they were all
oreat

“ JOURNEY TO BARKUT ... my comments
can be found on page 13 in the box A MODERN
ARABIAN NIGHTS.

LOST ART . . . different . . . well written. The
ending, however, could have been more dramatic.

THE GREAT IDEA ... Not a new idea but
well written.

THE WHEEL . . . Best of the short stories.
Let’s see more of these.

HOW GREEN WAS MY MARTIAN . . .
Yuk! Yuk! this guy writes like Bradbury. Very
funny.

A plea from a reader who likes to read THE
ETHER VIBRATES. Let’s not have any more
crack-pot formulas and ideas on time travel exct
. . messing up your good paper.

Your next issue promises to be as good or better.
Keep up the good work. — 1 Water St., Netvburgh,
N. Y.

So there is a Santa Klaus ! S’nice.

HELP WANTED

by Anthony Boldt

Dear Sir : I would like first to make a request
to your readers. If anyone has an extra copy of
the following issues, I wish he would drop me a
line : In SS, March and Summer ’46 ; Jan., May
and July ’47; Jan., Mar., Nov. ’48; Jan. ’49. In
TWS I need Fall ’45, Oct. ’47, Oct. ’48.

About your stories, they are getting almost too
good. Leinster’s novel is positively the best he’s
ever done. Even better than THE LAWS OF
CHANCE LOST. ART was. also very good. I
know A. Bertram Chandler is a pseudonym, but
for whom? All three shorts were only mediocre
with Reynolds as the best. More by him, please.
Also more by Hamilton, vV', MacDowell, Mac-
Donald, Vance, W’illiamson and Blish. I’d especially
like to see them in novel length. — 118 Berkeley St.,
Toronto, Ont., Canada.

Chandler is his real name so far as -we know.
He did once use the pseudonym of George

STARTLING STORIES

134

Whitley, but that was some years ago. We’ve
just bought a novelet by Hamilton, will prob-
ably see light in TWS. vV crops out in
FANTASTIC next ish with SLAN. There
are a couple of Vance jobs right now awaiting
processing, including a sequel to ABER-
CROMBIE STATION called CHOLWELL’S
CHICKENS. That hold you for a little while?

8LUD AND BLUNDER

by Buddy Johnson

Dear Sam (Mines, that is!) : I won’t open with
any trite remarks but will get right to the gist
and stuff.

Science fiction will almost necessarily contain
essences of westerns, love and detective fiction
because it is merely the portrayal of humans in
a far distant time. It is almost certain that it will
go through stages of development like this ; ex-
ploratory trips, colonization, piracy, law and order
and cities, ju.st as we settled America. So stf is
naturally going to be somewhat like westerns etc.
The type of story most magazines feature nowa-
days are really adventure stories.

1'ake the old Cap Future novels. I’ve heard
writers call them “blud and blunder” stories. That
isn’t entirely true. I think they had more to offer
in the way of deeper significance.

In the January issue I liked TOURNEY TO
BARKUT and LOST ART. THE WHEEL was
just a filler and HOW GREEN WAS MY MAR-
TIAN was silly. The artwork is swell . — Route 5.
Box 170, Eldorado, Kansas.

You’re just talking about one kind of stf
story, Bud, the space opera. And to an extent
you are right about it having some of the
qualities of any adventure story. But that isn’t
the only kind of stf story. There is the story
of ideas — or, if you will, adventure in ideas
rather than physical adventure in space. And
these are new conceptions with little or no re-
semblance to the buckety-buckety space opera.
Even a space opera, how'ever, should not be
nothing more than a western with ray-guns. It
should have an idea, or a problem which would
make it impossible anywhere but in space. If
you can easily change it to Montana from Mars
it isn’t a real stf story.

TOP OF THE LIST

by Tom Piper

Dear Ed: HOW GREEN WAS MY MAR-
TIAN in the January issue was the best doggoned
story I’ve ever read. Mack Reynolds is one of ray
favorites and I'm putting him on top of the list.
Egads, have more stories by him. And thanks for
going monthly . — 469 19th St,, Santa Monica, Cal,

This is known as a difference of opinion.

They tell me it is the stuff that makes horse-
racing, Also magazines.

PACING SHELLEY

by Jim England

Dear Editor : Has it ever struck you how little
attention is given to the depiction of emotion in the
pages of science fiction? Or how seldom one finds
really good description? In such novels as Wallace
West’s THE DARK TOWER in the July issue,
for instance, and in most space operas of the type,
one finds plenty of action and melodrama, but the
emotions to fit are totally inadequate. The latter
can only show that the writer has either not proper-
ly put himself in the place of the characters he is
creating (as every author should) and is thus
unable to ima.gine the emotions involved : or else
that he doesn’t possess the necessary ability to
depict such emotions skilfully. Which can it be?
I suspect that it is the latter.

If Shelley or D. H. Lawrence were alive today
and writing science fiction they would have been
able to do justice to such emotions. The emotions
for instance that space-ship crews would experience
on journeys between the stars, lasting periods of
years, away from all the home ties of earth and (as
the majority of stf stories cold-bloodedly assume)
away from their women-folk. The emotions of
men adventuring amongst the stars would certainly
exceed those of all others ever made the subject of
fiction since time began. And still stf writers
ignore them in their hurry to get to the next act !

In your latest mags I would exlude from this
critici.sm such stories as Leigh Brackett’s THE
WOMAN FROM ALTAIR and Hamilton’s
BIRTHPLACE OF CREATION. Hamilton,
though he has his defects, can at least get the emo-
tions into his space opera — sometimes. Let’s hav'e
more stories like these, please ; until the stf world’s
counterpart of D. H. Lawrence comes along to
show us how it's really done . — Students Union,
Leeds University, Leeds, Yorks, Eng,

This is something we have talked about be-
fore now, using different terms, not referring
specifically to emotion, since this is only part
of the problem. We have called for a broaden-
ing of the science-fiction story so that it deals
with people instead of only with mechanical
gadgets — people sometimes caught in a web of
.gadgets, blit real people with real problems and
real ejnotions. xAnd the tide has already turned
in that direction. By the time this sees print
you'll already have read VULCAN’S DOLLS
and I’d like to see another letter from you then.

THE CLAD HEART

by Bob Hoskins

Dear Sam: This issue of dear old SS is particu-
larly gladdening to my heart, bringing out the fact
that the dear old mag finally goes monthly. I only
hope TWS follows suit. I recall that TWS once.

THE ETHER VIBRATES

trod the monthly path about ten years ago.

Am also glad to see that my Weinbaum issue
suggestion for FSM is being carried out, in part
at least. Although I don’t care for his stuff myself,
it will be an essential part of any collection.

What in the name of all the immeasurable depths
of Hades is Jerry Bixby's name doing on your
fan column? Have you added him as a fixture of
your staff? Jellybean was one of Planet’s better
editors.

Note Bergey is still doing your covers. Had
hoped that . Schomburg had permanently replaced
him. This current cover looks something like
Belarski at his best.

With your permission I’d like to ask Marion
Bradley a question: Who was your English prof
here at State Teachers’ College? Wonder if
GheorgheC?) (Can’t read his writing — Ed.) is
still here. And what year did you leave? Maybe
some of the present students knew you. Have
already met your old friend Thyril Ladd. Thanks,
Sammy.

The Finlay pics for the novel were an example
of sheer beauty in the pulp field. The rest of the
illos were dead, although Poulton was fair. Am
glad to see Virgil back to his bubble style. They
were always his be.st pics.

May I mention the ISFCC here? One of the
better clubs. The initials stand for THE INTER-
NATIONAL SCIENCE FICTION CORRES-
PONDENCE CLUB. No dues. Only expense is a
subscription to the club ’zine which costs half a
buck per annum. (Competitors we should advertise
yet, free! — Ed.) If you think you might be in-
terested in the club and I think you will be if you
like stf, write me for further details. I’ll tell you
all I can. Extremely insincerely. . . . 1 Thurlow
Terrace, Albany 3, N.Y.

SNARLY RiDES AGAIN

by Edward G. Seibel

Dear Daniel : Curse your miserable bones, may
you be tossed to and devoured by the lions for
publishing a letter I never expected to see in print.
(SS Jan. ’52) You have, by your treacHery, now
placed me in a position which I must literally
write my way out of in order to solidify my stand
on matters and at the same time expose your in-
sidious plot to subvert me. Observe the fact, wretch,
that I wrote the letter in a towering rage at such
gross misuse of the word “science fiction,” which
you yet claim to be the purveyor of, and that in
my rages I am not often given to logic ; thus it
was that two days later, after my fury had abated
somewhat, I began to question the contents of my
letter, wondering just ivkat in hell I did W'rite ; so
it was I penned off an apologetic note asking you
not to publish my letter. But what do I see? My
letter in print ! I swore a mighty oath, then read
it and found to my delight I was quite rational in
my composition ; therefore the fact that it is logical
negates ray apology — which I have no doubt you are
scurrilously intending to publish (Yep, I did — Ed.)
in your next issue in order to abject me. Well,
let it be known your insidious plot is revealed and
that my stand is with the letter I at first hadn’t
wanted published.

The reply you gave my letter is of low buffoon-

135

ery, hardly an answer from an intelligent person.
Since you are so nasty in your puerile little manner,
I shall give you blow for blow and don’t say you
aren’t asking for it, because it’s right there in black
and pulp, whether you mean it or not.

You’re just as funny as the hot hinges of hell,
aren’t you? I suppose, w'ith your mentality, you
positively expect me to produce a time machine an ’
project myself into next month for a ready opinion
of St. Clair’s story. Well, I’ve no hidden time
mechanisms so you'll just have to contain your
curious little self, for I’m reserving judgment
until then. Come now, Sam. can't you give more
than such pue’dle renlies? You don’t even appear
to be inclined to give me an argument, hut merely
avoidance, possibly because you are inclined to m.y
stand on matters. I suspect : for anyone w'ho dis-
agreed with me could have given me an argument.

I can, of course, give you an opinion of Lein-
ster’s story. Probably the only reason the thing
was accepted was for the simple reason Leinster’s
appellation w'as on it ; if some unknown jperson
had sent it in he or she wmuld have received a
rejection slip. JOURNEY TO BARKUT was
fantasy lousy and simple. Lousy because it was
fantasy and sim.ple because it was unoriginal....
If I couldn't write a better fantasy than that, wdth
more originality, I would take my pen and throw
it out the w'indow, then cancel the order I put in
for a typewriter.

The story was fantasy, Sam, and you claim
“scientifiction at its best.” That’s false advertising.
Since I realize Merwin chose this thing, he should
have occupied a fantasy editor’s seat, for as any-
thing resembling a science-fiction editor, he’s a flop,
a fiasco. I for one am glad he’s gone. I hope you
can exercise better taste and jud.gement. At this
utterance, undoubtedly a few thousand fans are
arising to do battle, but then a lot of my ancestors
stood battling with swords defending their view-
points till they were cut down ; I guess I can face
verbal battles with the same resolution and courage
in defending ray right to an opinion of my own.

Merwin, the man who complained so bitterly
about poor characterization, let this redundant
nothing slip throu.gh his pudgy fingers without a
bleat. There are so many unexplored possibilities
in science fiction that frankly I can’t see why you
stoop to fantasy.

I’ve taken your suggestion to write and tell you
my opinion of Leinster’s story. It was perhaps an
innuendo of yours ; however, I bear you no hard
feelings and I trust you bear me none for express-
ing my opinion. A fair offer of friendship. — Bo.r
445, Olivchurst. Cal.

Hard feelings? Perish forbid. Our only
gripe against you, von Seibel, is that you’re
trying to fill SS (and TWS and FSM too) all
by your little lonesome. This above, you’ll
recognize, is only half your letter. We cut the
gruesome parts out, not wanting to shock any
really delicate readers.

Somewhere we read that a soft answer
turneth away wrath, so we tried that on you,
figuring it wasn’t right to hit children, and
looky, twice as snarly as ever. But then any-

one who couldn’t enjoy the innocent merriment
of JOURNEY TO BARKUT has a built in 22
karat grouch — did you ever take an 3 rthing for
it, Edwardo ? No, I’m not making \'ou an offer
for it, I mean did you ever have a chiropractor
look at it or anything? So you think you can
write a bette-i' story than JOURNEY, do you?
I’m afraid not quite enough of your ancestors
were cut down while defending their positions.

Don’t let the literary success of having your
mad ravings published (at reduced rates) turn
your girlish head. With the same treachery
that characterized our other actions we have
published your letters to cut the ground from
under your feet. Ten years from now you will
look back at your collection of SS, read your
letters and scream in horror. Then, and only
then, will you realize that you have been fencing
with a Machiavellian strategist wdio gives no
quarter. Far from wasting atomic blows on
such a puny antagonist, we merely let you rave
on until you convict yourself out of your own
bleeding fountain pen. (Hey, when are you go-
ing to get a typewriter anj'way? Those hand
wudtten volumes are murder.)

With that we accept your offer of friendship.
See you around.

HIGH BLOOD PLEASURE

by Don Foster

Dear Ed : What a job. If you keep improving
the way you’ve been doing. I’m afraid I’ll die of
blood pressure. I could not ask for a better job in
heaven !

The cover was so good I could of sat and read
that. Who dood it? Earle Bergey?

JOURNEY TO BARKUT was one of the best
stories I’ve seen in print. More Leinster ! ! ! Please...

And Bert Chandler’s LOST ART was good
enough to eat.

THE WHEEL was too short but it had a good
plot. Ditto for HOW GREEN WAS MY MAR-
TIAN. I never laughed .so liard at any SF story.

TEV was up to its usual standard (as usual).

I was wondering, if THE DAY THE EARTH
STOOD STILL was based on THE MASTERS
RETURN? I noticed it said that the show was
based on a story by Harry Bates but is it the same
one?

So in summing up “Congrats” and I mean it.
Keep up the good work. — 3344 E. Pender St.,
Vancouver 6, 43. C.

Yep, Bergey dood the BARKUT cover and
also the VULCAN’S DOLLS cover, to fore-
stall your next question. The Harry Bates’
story you mean was called FAREWELL TO
THE MASTER and that’s the one the movie
was based upon. I’m worried about your high
blood pleasure because— sigh — there’s some

awful good stories lined up, waiting to let you
have it. You’d better relax.

IT’S FANTASTIC

by Wally Weber

Dear Mr. Mines : Murray Leinster is a dirty dog.
As I read JOURNEY TO BARKUT, I chanted
the motto of all pure science-fictioners, “THIS
IS FANTASY AND I HATE EVERY WORD.
THIS IS FANTASY AND I HATE EVERY
WORD. THIS IS FANTASY AND . , .” well,
you have the idea and you know what I'm complain-
ing about. Dirty-dog Leinster led me on, making
me hate every word, and then when I had myself
completely committed to hating it all, he reversed
his field and turned the wliole frumious fantasy
into undiluted science-fiction. He tricked me, a
fanatic of pure science-fiction, into hating every
word of a science-fiction story.

If you can think of a worse sin, you should have>
your mind washed out with soap.

My problem is, how can I repent properly?
Would it be enough to seclude myself in some iso-
lated observatory and give the remaining years of
my life to computing the value of pi to its ten-
thousandth decimal place? Or should I, perhaps,
throw myself at the mercies of a cyclotron and will
all my mutations to science? I must make amends,
somehow.

While anxiously awaiting your advice in this
matter, I might just as well carry on my duties as
a true fan and gripe my spare heads off about an
insignificant item. It has to do with the female
element in a story that is otherwise completely free
of fantasy. JOURNEY TO BARKUT might as
well serve once again as the example. I would like
to refer you to the case of Esir and Esiin. These
two, if we can trust such an unreliable dirty dog
as author Leinster, were unrepulsive, alone with
Tony in a bedroom, and apparently quite willing to
comply enthusiastically with Tony’s slightest whim.
Had this remarkable situation been carried to its
logical conclusion, the January 19S2 STARTLING
STORIES would have proved ineligible for mail-
ing in this narrow-minded nation. But that is not
the point. What is important is that the logical
conclusion did not evolve, a fact that makes it pure
fantasy in its most disappointing form. For a
fantasy story this might be tolerated, but for a
science-fiction story there is no excuse for this
warping of logic. Similar situations are continually
showing up in science-fiction stories where heroines
are allowed ta appear in the same paragraphs as
the heroes. For this reason I plead with you and
other editors — keep the feminine element out of
science-fiction.

I shall close now, but I suggest you give these
matters careful consideration. — Room 378, Cascade
Halt, Unn'ersity of Wash., Seattle 5, Wash.

P.S. Congrats on going monthly!

We have given the matter long and careful
consideration — thirty seconds at least — and
have come to the conclusion that locking a man
alone in a bedroom with a couple of cuties like

Esir and Esini and expecting him to retain his
resolutions uncrumbled would place such a
strain upon the nature of space that it would
warp the cosmos beyond repair. This obvious-
ly makes it fantasy, but we said all along it
was fantasy. You’re the one said it was “pure”
science fiction, whatever that is. And we —
come on, get your head out of that cyclotron !

LET UNBELIEVERS HOWL

by Charles L. Pyron

Dear Ed : I’ve been a more or less irregular
reader of your niagazines for several years now.
but here in the East it is not easy to find a current
issue every month (meaning SS alternating with
TWS. ) These two are the only continually absorb-
ing and credible mags on stf that I have sampled.
.Anyhow I am enclosing a check to cover a 12 issue
subscription for SS. Would like to do likewise with
TWS but I’m not a back issue saver and I haven’t
seen one on the newsstands since I left Michigan.
Please advise me on this if you are able.

I would like at this time to say you are doing
a fine job of putting readable fiction on the market.
I myself am a college graduate in chemistry and
have become more interested in your stuff yearly.
Believe me. I take some real razzing from my
business and persona! associates when they dis-
cover my interest in science fiction, but I am per-
fectly willing to go on record as saying no man
need scorn it as kid stuff. This “mature” word I
see kicking around in your letter columns is com-
pletely beside the point from the readers’ view in
my opinion. No matter how fanta.stic some stories
are. there is always an idea involved which is worth
consideration and possible addition to a man’s store
of knowledge. I may not be conscious of the fact
that the idea sticks wdth me until it pops up as an
adjunct to an idea of my own or as a key aid in
understanding a problem or discussion in down-
to-earth science.

I will defend you against all comers large and
small. I’m perfectly willing to pit my diploma
and I.Q. against the best of them as proof of my
qualifications to speak as an educated man. So let
the unbelievers howl — I love every bit of it. — A-22
Penn Gardens. Pennsauken, 8, N.J.

I© PEOPLE
Who ¥ifonf T© Write

but can't get started

Do you have that constant urge to write
but fear that a beginner hasn’t a chance ?
Then listen to what the former editor of
Liberty said on this subject:

"There is more room {or newcomers in the writing field
today than ever before. Some of the greatest of writing
men and women have passed from - the scene in recent
years. Who will take their places? Who will be the new
Robert W. Chambers, Edgar Wallace, Rudyard Kipling?
Fame, riches and the happiness of achievement await the
new men and women of power."

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is a simple but expert analysis of your latent ability, your
powers of imagination, logic, etc. Not all applicants pass
this test. Those who do are qualified to take the famous
N. I. A. course based on the practical training given by
big metropolitan dailies.

This is the New York Copy Desk Method which teaches
you to write by writing. You develop your individual style
instead of trying to copy that of others. Although you work
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have considered him crazy." — Wal-
ter F. Roper, 95 Benedict Terrace,
Longmeadow, Mass.

First, to clear up \'Our mechanical trouble.s:
you now have a year’s subscription to SS. so
that’s taken rare of. You know. T hope, that
SS is a monthly now. I don’t know why you
can’t get TWS on the stands — it’s on ’em. Ask
your newsdealer to save you a copy — he will. If
not, let us know and we'll flood Pennsauken with
them.

Thanks for ihe spirited boost. You’ve touched
upon something there — the concept that science
fiction is fundamentally a literature of ideas
and that any good story should contain some-
thing fresh in the way of a new idea or a new
treatment of an old idea. That’s exactly what

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But the first step is to take the FREE Writing Aptitude
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Copyright 1951, Newspoper Institute of Americc.

137

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IE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHRISTiANS AND JEWS

Brotherhood should not be looked upon as a
luxury to be preserved for only pleasant occasions.
Brotherhood is itself the greatest of all realities, and
the literal practice of it would be the one broad and
basic solution for our worst problems.

— Oscar Hammersteiri

If we in America, against our background of free
institutions and economic well-being, fail to work out
decent patterns of human relations, then the very
memory of decency may be expunged in the whole
world.

— Eddie Cantor

we’re after, in sharp contrast to ordinary “fan-
tastic adventure.” Come again.

SANITARY SEMANTICS

by Norman C. Browne

My Dearest Editor : I call you this as I have a
mag in my possession that cost me five cents and
have recently learned that it is quite valuable. (Vol.
I, No. 1, Startling) .

To quote from the letter column May 1948 Star-
tling; ‘“....keeping the story reviewis short and
employing your letter to an occasional thought. . .”
I hope that this expression of policy by a former
editor has your agreement. Accordingly,'! give you
the following. I think your Mag is wonderful, in
my opinion the last ten issues were great. And
now for an occasional thought.

The meaning and sounds of words has always
been a favorite interest of mine. It has been stated
that the most beautiful word in the language is
“love.” Conversely, the ugliest word is "hate.” But
all this is a matter of opinion, each to his own
tastes. Edgar Allen Poe’s favorite word was “ever,”
thus he wrote “The Raven.”

Some of the words T like are “Manhattan” —
notice the sweet sounding syllables in combination
with the rhythmic repetition of the vowels. Indianap-
olis Indiana — Alliteration and repetition make
these words especially pleasin.g to the ear. Along
the same line is Minneapolis Alinnesota (A child
writing to his uncle in that city addressed his letter
“Many apples, Many soda.”)

.Another couple of words I like are Neanderthal
and Pithecanthropus Erectus. Called my sister the
former one day, the next day she was calling me
it. She had gone to school and learned its meaning.
So I called her a Pithecanthropus Erectus. At first
she thought I was swearing at her (I swore I
wasn’t). A week later she found out what it was
at school (It took her that long to learn how to
pronounce it). Then I called her a BEM. She
went to school and asked her teachers. That stumped
them. The school was in a state of confusion for
a month then T relented and told tliem its meaning.

Why did tlie ancients give all extra-terrestrial
objects and places such horrible sounding names?
Pity*the future students having to recite orally all
the well-known landmarks of the moon ! Pity the
students of Cosmolo.gy class having to memorize the
names of the asteroids !

There are probably many fans who have never
talked to other fans at any length and/or have
never had any reason to use S-F terms or names
in the course of their everyday speech. These fans
quite honestly do not know how to pronounce many
S-F words and names. I know, I was one myself.
It might prove interesting if you were to print the
pronounciation of some of these words. How about
some of these for a start ; — Heinleiii, Leimster, van
Vogt, Pliobos, Deimos, Arcturus, Centurus, etc.

Did you hear about the fan who stated that if
you want to meet other fans and/or start a club,
to go to church? All churchgoers profess to read
the bible and isn’t the bible the greatest S-F story
ever written? Some fans are sure to call this state-
ment blasphemous, and others will probably agree
with it. No comment because I personally am an
agnostic pantheist.

Would all fans in the VANCOUVER B.C,
area get in touch with me? I’m lonely . . . Thanks.

Thanks for printing such a swell mag, and thanks
for listening to my few humorous thoughts . — llsO
IV. King Edward Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

The most beautiful word in the English lan-
guage, we always thought, w'as “cellar door.’’
Say it softly and crooningly to yourself and
see if it doesn’t have more liquid beauty than
the one-syllabled, undistinguished grunt which
is “love.”

So far as we know, Heinlein is pronounced
Hine-line. Murray Leinster himself pronounces
it Len-ster and you can say van Vogt about like
what you should do on Election Day — vote,
d'he rest are easy.

What's an agnostic pantheist ? And for
Pete's sake, let's not start another battle on re-
ligion — these aging nerves couldn’t take it.

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Minei Dear Sam (ouch what a twist!): The
other day a little old gray-haired lady with two
huge bundles of .STARTLING STORIES in her
arms got on the bus and do you know that not one
single gentleman would give lier his seat 1 ? I sat
there in amazement. (You worm — Ed.)

What does all this have to do with the price of
science fiction? Well, it shows that little ole gray-
haired gals choose SS above enny other brand!
STARTLING STORIES are so-o-o-o good! They
soothe the raw, irritated mind : calm the nerves
and are easy on the ‘‘E" zone. (E for eyes.) Try
an ish today and you'll agree that STARTLING
STORIES is a smo-o-o-oth ’zine !

1 enjoyed TOURNEY TO BARKUT. It was
different from the run-of-the-mill stuff.

By tlie way. I’m being so happy over that coming
out each month your mag is going to be. Real
bully of yuh Sam. (Is meaning Mines.) — VR-1
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Willie, did yon ever hear the stor)' about the
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it was easy? She didn’t want to go!”

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Dar Muster Mines: Having just finished the
latest isli of SS, I now take rye and smokes in
hand, mount my trusty Corona, and iiold target
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fans . . . editors. .A.h, me lad, you are in for a
drubbing. I recollect me that during the few years
I’ve been reading stf, the mortality rate on editors
has been terrif. At least they have a turnover that
would be guaranteed to make the fortune of any
merchant dealing in such. Could it be that ye of
the editorial race decide it is not worth the effort
expended in reading execrable typing and unin-
hibited handwriting? Your introductory editorial
indicates you are of at least average intelligence ;
must be that you are as yet unaware of the high
premiums imposed on editors by insurance com-
panies. Seriously, though, I question the meaning of
the high turnoverf in stf editors ; does it, perchance,
indicate that stf is still, after lo, these many years,
an infant in the world of mags ? Or is it that after
a while in the editor’s chair editors merely drop
out to do some writing on their own hook? Even
if the last is true, it is not a healthy sign for the
brotherhood of stf. I can't see the cause, but I see
the effect, and I don’t like it ; it is not as it should
be. I suspect the trouble, and the necessary meas-
ures to mend it, devolve on the publishers and the
general tie-in at your end, not at ours, the fan’s.
Anyway, welcome, paisan, may you have a long
and dull, or short and merry, tenure ; or, if you
can do it, a long and merry one.

Was mightily pleased with the current ish of SS;
thought the lead novel. THE STAR WATCHERS,
was well worthy of the spot. A.n intriguing bit of
philosophy there: reminiscent of Voltaire’s “in-
sects on a ball of mud," but without the bitterness
involved in Vo'tairc’s utterance. I'd like to see
more of E. Frank Russell. And your cover! I had
given up hope of ever surviving the "darts and
slings” of life long enough to see the return of
such covers. I have long deplored, though I don’t
believe to editors, the tendency to pulchritude dis-
plays on covers of stf. Stf is a form of fiction in
its own right : why not put out covers consonant
with the contents? Keep it up. amigo, and don’t
drop back into scantily-clad-voluptuous-gal-in-arms-
of -Neanderthalian-hero - waving - blaster-in-alieii-at-
mosphere type of covers. De Vibrating Ether was
dull, insofar as there were no wars going on (can
hardly call the corrections on Childe Harolde and
Roland a war) but otherwise quite good, repre-
sentative, at least. But it still lags far behind the
reader’s section of a competitor. ’Fraid I can’t
offer any suggestions on this matter ; can’t even
tell you why it lags. W'ould require much too much
research and comparison, and I’d rather write and
read. (Incidentally, .Sir Sam, the poreness of ray
typing is due mainly to a new, unfamiliar, type-
writer, that is neither as fast nor as used to me as
my old one.)

Well, I’ll push off. A last word. LAY OFF
TIME-TRAVEL. STORIES, yea, AND SPACE-
TIME TOO,— H26I Euclid Are., Bristol, Va.

You call that a drubbing? This is not the
kind of punishment which causes editors to
take to the hills, to become free-lance writers
in a little shack in the Ozarks. Editors suffer
from an occupational disease known to some
authorities as “stenographers’ spread.” It is
caused by sitting too long in a swivel chair.
Other editors are afflicted by bursitis of the

140

elbow, caused by bending it too often. Where
there is a brass rail, this gives an editor a
slightly lop-sided stance so that he is always
afterwards more comfortable walking on the
side of a hill. But the business which ages
most of them so rapidly is the necessity for
changing fan letters into readable English.
After a siege of that even editors who never
wanted to be writers begin to suffer from
hallucinations.

NO FAIR CAME

by Jim Harmon

Dear Mr. Mines. Congratulations 1 Thanks ! A
monthly .STARTLING STORIES! Exclamations
of surprise, gratitude, and praise! Frankly, I never
thought it would liappen. I supposed it was a deep-
dyed rule of Thrilling's higher brass that no maga-
zine of theirs would be published oftener than bi-
monthly (for a longer display and sale period).
Now that it has finally come about however, I am —
naturally being a stf fan — not satisfied.

I want a monthly THRILLING WONDER
STORIES. Possibly this is also in your plans
since ST.\RTLING and WONDER have always
been published on the same schedule and in the
same format. If not, it is a pity. In fact, if you
were onh' going to make one of the Thrilling
Twins a monthly, it seems to me that it would be
more fitting (if nothing else) to make that one
WONDER, since it has tlie better history and
tradition.

However. I suppose circulation figures rather
than glory decided the question for you mercenary
characters, the editors. There is the concession that
STARTLING does have the book-length novels.
Will this mean a new one every month? Probably
not since you will probably want to present a wider
selection of story material meaning a short novel
a la WONDER with .several novelets and shorts
in some issues. Still most of the Thrilling maga-
zines liavc a definite constant policy regarding story
lengtlis. and ST.LRTLIXG's has evidently been
successful. If you do trv for a new novel every
month I predict you will have troubie getting them.
Top quahty ones, that is. We both know that
there isn't enough good sti being turned out. i.e.
not enough good writers to fill all tlie e.xtant maga-
zines, and long novels are even harder to get than
shorts and novelets, because many top stf writers
just don’t write long novels at all, nr only one
every few years. Possibly this is because they are
harder work than shorter pieces and the places to
sell them are limited. ,

But no matter what, here's wishing you the best
of luck with a monthly STARTLING .STORIES,
and hoping for a monthly WONDER, trimmed
edges, a bi-monthly F.A,NT.'\STIC STORY MAG-
AZINE (where I saw the announcement about
SS), a WONDER STORY QUARTERLY, and
bigger magazines for 35d. (No, I don’t think we’ll
get them all, but I'm like a kid with Santa Claus ;
asking for everything so I might get more than
I expected.)

Incidentally wliile I’m writing I'd like to con-

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gratulate you, Mr. Mines, on doing a highly com-
petent job of editing SS, TWS & FSM. You had
some mighty big shoes to fill in those of Sam
Merwin but you seem to be doing it. In one respect
I think you’re better than Sam M No. 1. You
don’t insult and humiliate relatively innocent people
in the letter section (an extremely vulnerable spot)
as Merwin often did. While an editor may consider
any letter-writer who says anything against him
or his magazine fair game, he should remember
that his words carry a lot more weight than the
reader’s and that he is taking unfair advantage
when he insults the reader.

All this is even truer when it comes to the fan
editor who says something against a professional
magazine in his own publication of perhaps a circu-
lation of a hundred and then gets ripped apart for
it in a magazine of a hundred thousand circula-
tion. It may be democratic to say that both editors
are equals, but it isn’t exactly logical , — 427 East
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their influence. However, when a reader sends
his insults to the prozine to be printed, he is
then getting the full benefit of the larger cir-
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The present policy of getting a long novel
for each issue of SS will be continued so far as
possible. If it ever becomes impossible to get
enough novels of quality we may use other
combinations of stories, but that doesn’t seem
too likely. In fact we are more than encouraged
by the increasing high quality of the material
being written today. And that’s more im-
portant than trimmed edges, so keep your fin-
gers crossed.

THE LAST FRONTIER

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

With all due respect for the president of such
a sage organization as the U.S. Rocket Society,
I would like to take exception to the remarks of
R. L. Farnsworth. He says, in effect, that the con-
quest of .Space is a necessity to the human race.

This is wis.hful thinking of the worst sort. Ro-
mantics and science-fiction writers like to think so.
History, alas, is not in agreement.

The human race is still in the infancy of es-
capism. Look at the record. The lure of a frontier,
a horizon, a fresh start, has always kept mankind
from settling down to really solve, not just defer,
the problems of existence. For instance : it was
always the misfits, the failures, who left their
place of birth and went somewhere else ; if a man
made a mess of his life in old England, for instance,
got into jail, refused to accept normal standards
of behavior, why, there were always the colonies.
If a man failed to make a living in New England
or the South, why, there was the California Gold
Rush and the lure of the golden West to offer

the promise of a fresh start.

California, according to certain crackpot sciences,
is a significant state. It is significant in reality,
because it was the last frontier, the last horizon.
Now that the entire surface of the globe has been
explored and charted, man is up against his problem
again ; shall he settle down and solve his problems,
or shall he run away again? There are no fresh
ground.s to run to : but he can never resolve to sit
dowm and learn to live with himself. Instead, he
formulates the dream of space. Now, I am not
saying space travel is impossible. I am saying it
is impractical. The cost, in irreplaceable materials
which would leave the planet forever, in deaths
and in work, is simply too high. The money that
goes now into rocket research, given to some
agency for world peace, could practically buy peace
forever, \\hiile there are still wars, while human-
ity has not learned to live decently on the resources
already at its command, space travel is premature,
and if undertaken will end in fiascos like those of
the conquest of the West.

A race that still desires a horizon is still in
its infancy. The mind that dreams of space travel
is an immature mind. The end of new frontiers of
geography presents a choice to the Ituman race ;
shall it carry its great potentialities into the great
fields of science, of biologjq of agriculture and
medicine, into the conquest of mankind’s great
diseases, into the perfecting of human character,
or shall it cry, like a little boy. for a bigger play-
ground ?

Our own planet will be sufficient, for a million
years, to perfect man's knowledge of himself. Until
then, it is my august opinion, to which I have as
good a right as ^Ir. Farnsworth to his, that Space
Travel would only present new problems to which
humanity would have no solution. We w'ould prob-
ably muddle through them someliow . . . we muddled
through the conquest of the \A^est with no greater
damage than the extinction of the buffalo and the
Redmen, and the temporary collapse of all social
standards into a code of violence .... but it w'ould
be better to wait a few thousand years, until we
can go out into space in the dignity of a race
which was fully mature. Let's sit down... and
let our culture catch up with our technology. It
will only be a few thousand years. And that's
nothing to a race like good old homo-sap — if he
can refrain from blowing himself up with his shiny
new atomic pop-.gun.

By the way. I liked JOURNEY TO BARKUT
verj' well. In fact, I like most "lost-world” stories.
And I’m not indicting science-fiction ; I love it.
However, I think it is a bit silly to try to make
it come true in real life. After all, no grown-up
goes around looking for a talking teddy-bear, no
matter how much he may have loved Winnie-the-
Pooli when he was six years old, — Bo.v 246,
Rochester, Te.ras.

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little boys playing with Teddy Bears? So far as
your remarks go on the misfits, the failures,
who were always looking for something easier

[Turn page]

143

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PEFENSE

around the next bend in the road instead of
staying home and solving their problems — ^we
agree, as you may have noticed in our recent
exchange with Joe Gibson. And undoubtedly
some of that is involved in the hoopla about
space travel. But you’re overlooking some-
thing.

Space travel, exploration of other planets and
all the rest of it, is a legitimate extension of
man’s knowledge and science. As a reasoning
creature, as a scientist, man wants to know
and he is entitled to that knowledge if he has
the skill to push ahead the frontiers of science.
There are, therefore, two frontiers. One is
escape for the misfits. The other is the frontier
of knowledge. Let’s keep the distinction clear.
But apart from that you’ve got a point, though
I , was shaken to my grass roots to see you
talking down your favorite literature. '

SPACE PROBLEM

by Milton C. Erland

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Dear Sir ; I am one of those fans who has been
reading the mag since ’way back when, and I can
recall many fine stories that appeared in STAR-
TLING, and your companion mag THRILLING
WONDER.

Now, I still like to re-read those wonderful old
stories and to continue to read the newer ones, but
I have a problem. Oh, what a problem!

Wife says : “Seven boxes of fantasy magazines !
Who ever said fantasy was light reading should
have their head examined. Get those things out of
here, or else !’’

So, here we go.

Now, you fans, do you want to help me hold my
wife? If so, write me. Remember, I only have
one issue of any one month or year. Please do not
ask me to break a serial, if one exists. I have
everything back to 1943, practically intact. Good
covers, printers condition, but I’m no dealer, just
a fellow fan. (also a few back to 1939).

I want to see if anyone besides myself has that
collector’s itch. I'll sell COD postage plus, any or
all, and oh boy, can we use that extra closet space.
Our baby, now five months old, needs space too so
come one come all.

Write me, please. If in New York or vicinity,
phone, I'm in the Bronx book, all two lines.

Best wishes . — 3900 Spnyten Duyvil Parkway,
New York City 71.

The truck will be in front of your door about
two hours after this mag hits the stands, Milton.

P STUDY AT HOME for Business
Success and LARGER PERSONAL
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144

What was that about someone helping you hold
your wife ?

NO CHARACTER

by Joseph Semenovich

Dear Editor :

I am not a “character” as you so called me in
your comment of my letter in the January issue.
In fact you misinterpreted one whole paragraph of
my letter.

I did not write (or so that I remember) that
maybe Merwin was the author of “The Last Story.”
Anyone would know that he isn’t. I simply said
that he (Merwin) would have probably saved the
same thing as the editor in the “Last Story” did —
save a rejection slip. In fact I remember putting
parenthesis around that point, yet the parenthesis
did not appear on my letter in THE ETHER
VIBRATES. It mav be though, that I myself
made the mistake while typing it. But this I shall
say again. Anyone would know that Merwin did
not write “The Last Story,” he wmote the first one
(in the issue, that is).

I’m putting out a fanzine, the first issue is out
(I must admit that it wasn’t so terriffic in the
mimeoing) but I need material and subscribers for
the second issue. How' about some of you fans
Vidio read this, write me some articles. I have
enough fiction at the present but if it is excep-
tionally good I'll take it. Articles, fact or otherwise
will be gladly accepted though. Also the zine costs
a dime if you want it.

Well that's all for this letter, except that I’m
anxiously awaiting to read your next issue. — 40-14
10 St., Long Island City, 1, N. Y,

Our apologies. We did misinterpret your
letter, as became quite clear on a second read-
ing. We also had to cut some of this letter, but
your fanzine plug is in. That should make
amends, I hope.

Be on hand next month for George O. Smith’s
big beautiful space novel — THE HELLFLO W-
ER — and a new collection of wild, wacky and
winsome letters. Be seeing you.

— The Editor

For the Best

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— Confinued from Back Cover

m

TO READERS

OF THIS
MAGAZINE

fAMAZINGOFFE

ijbuisloenjoyfivaiJfeHnie!

The Thrilling Works of

W HO can read Zane Grey's tales
and not be swept away by
their colorful action, their breath-
taking thrills, their blood-tingling
excitement? Here are fearless men
and the women they fought for;
ruthless desperadoes and trigger-
quick outlaws. Here is the roar of
blazing guns — and the awe-inspiring

The Greot ZANE GREY!

silence of prairie and canyon.

Here is the savage West, where
greed and passion struggled for
power; where men and women rode
roughshod over raw danger and
threatening death. You do not
merely read these books; you
share in these pulse-pounding
adventures.

All the Glory of the Old West — Its Sweeping Action, Color and Romance —
Recaptured in Beautiful Volumes Your Family Will Be Proud to Own

"LJ ERE is an amazing opportunity!
■k Z Now you can bring into your home
The Collected Works ol ZANE GREY
— in beautiful matched volumes,
‘•Golden West De Luxe Editions.”

How proud you will be to display
these luxurious volumes — gorgeously
bound in buckram and sturdy cloth.
Yet. because of a tremendous printing,
they come to you for less than the price
of ordinary books!

Just picture them in your home —
and imagine the world of pleasure they
will open up to your family! The partial
list that follows gives you only an ink-
ling of the thrills that await you:

1. RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE. See
description on other side.

2. THE THUNDERING HERD. The glori-

ous days of the Texas hide-hunters —
fearless men answering the
wildness of the range with f
flaming guns! .

3. WILDFIRE. The tempestu- i
ous story of a great wild
stallion, a fiery girl — and
the man who was strong
enough to tame them both!

4. ARIZONA AMES. His
blazing six-shooter spread
terror in the hearts of the
toughest badmen!

5. SHADOW ON THE TRAIL.
Quick-shooting Wade Holden
fights with rawhide - tough
rustlers.

6. ROGUE RIVER FEUD. Vio-
lence and death on Rogue
River, where men stopped

at nothing to win the high stakes of
the rich salmon runs.

7. DESERT GOLD. Spine-tingling adven-
tures of men and women crazed by the
lure of riches.

8. WEST OF THE PECOS. Into this land
of the lawless came a straight-shooting
young man — who turned out to be a
girl!

9. THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS.

Mighty epic of warfare on the border,
throbbing with excitement!

10. CALL OF THE CANYON. Smashing
drama of death and danger — racing
to a climax that leaves you breathless!

11. 30,000 ON THE HOOF. Pioneer
Logan Huett battles against screaming
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The other great volumes are listed

on the other side. Every one is complete
— not one thrilling word is cut!

SEND NO MONEY

Send no money! Just mail the RES-
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There are positively no other
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BLACK’S READERS SERVICE CO.,
Suite 1000, One Park Avenue, New
York 16. N. Y.

READER'S RESERVATION CARD

BLACK'S READERS SERVICE COMPANY

I Suite 1000 N.S.

^ 1 Pork Avenue, New York 16, N. Y.

I Please reserve in my name the books listed in your generous offer to readers of this

! magazine — the luxuriously-bound “Golden West De Luxe Editions” of Zane Grey.

Send me at once the first book, RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE. I enclose NO

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Truly Luxurious Books!

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for your lifetime library!

1

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Luxe volunje as it comes from the press, at the same low price, sending no money in
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NAME

ADDRESS.

(Please Print Plait^y)

YOUR FIRSTBOOK IS NOW READY [|

MAIL RESERVATION CARD NOW! q CITY

STATE.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

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Readers Hats a^l

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and to Those listed aUw awK

on the Other Side! 'oSH^^

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Robbers’ Roost * Wild gfe| 5 . j|9||^ Jy**

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• The Vanishing American • Sheph* rd '
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RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

Fiery gun fights; wild
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of the pioneer! Against
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Continued on Other Side